Bat Masterson remained Wyatt's
friend for most of his life. They initially met as buffalo hunters and later
worked together in law enforcement in Dodge City, Kansas. For a short time, Bat
also dealt cards for Wyatt when Wyatt had the gambling concession at the
Oriental Saloon in Tombstone. He eventually became friends with President
Theodore Roosevelt, who arranged for him to be appointed deputy U.S. marshal for
the southern district of New York state.

Gunfighter/gambler Luke Short was
a good friend of both Wyatt and Bat. He, too, dealt cards for Wyatt at the
Oriental. Wyatt came to Luke assistance when he was run out of Dodge City in an
incident that became known as the Dodge City War.

Celia Ann "Mattie" Earp was
Wyatt's second wife. They were together for about eight years.

This photograph was taken just
two weeks before he died on January 13, 1929. He was 80 years old.

Josephine Earp later in her life. She and Wyatt
remained together until his death in 1929. Wyatt and most of their friends
called her "Sadie", a nickname derived from her middle name, Sarah. She is now
more often referred to as "Josie".

Wyatt and the woman is believed to be his wife
Josie. This is taken in front of a saloon, owned by Wyatt, in Tonopah, NV in
1902

Wyatt A Josie Earp Tombstone

Newton Earp family. Newton was father to all the Earp's.

Morgan Earp was shot through the shoulders in the
gunfight near the O.K. Corral. Though he recovered from this, the outlaws
murdered him a few months later. It was his death that prompted Wyatt to launch
his vendetta against the outlaws. It was actually the Vendetta, not the
gunfight, that made Wyatt famous.

Virgil Earp was Tombstone's marshal and deputy
U.S. marshal for the area. He was shot through the calf in the gunfight. Two
months later he was severely wounded in an attempt by the outlaws to murder him.
Six inches of bone had to be removed from his left arm, crippling him for life.

James Earp owned the Sampling Room Saloon in
Tombstone. While he was in Tombstone at the time of the shootout, he played
little role in it. Wyatt's older half-brother Newton didn't move to Tombstone
with the rest, but his youngest brother, Warren, did. Warren was away at the
time of the gunfight, but he was involved in the Vendetta.

This photograph of Doc Holiday was taken in
Prescott, A.T. in 1879. It's thought that Doc sent this picture to his aunt,
Ella McKey.

Doc Holiday in 1881. This picture was taken by
Tombstone photographer, C. S. Fly, whose shop was at the site of the famous
gunfight.

Doc Holiday

Doc Holiday 1872

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Between the Xs are pictures of some of the people that
were against the Earps

Ike Clanton was the main instigator of the
gunfight near the O.K. Corral. He was unarmed when the fight took place and
quickly fled the scene. This is a detail from a photograph taken by C. S. Fly in
his gallery at the site of the gunfight. Ike was involved in rustling and
stagerobbing.

Ike Clanton

Frank McLaury in 1879 before coming to Tombstone.
As the Earps tried to disarm the cowboys, Frank and Ike's brother, Billy, drew
their weapons. Even though Billy fired at Wyatt, Wyatt knew Frank was the most
dangerous shot of the bunch so that's who he fired at. Billy's shot missed, but
Wyatt's struck Frank in the stomach.

Tom McLaury in 1879 before coming to Tombstone.
He was killed by a shotgun blast fired by Doc Holliday. Frank and Tom had been
involved in selling stolen cattle.

Tom McLaury, Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton
shortly after the gunfight. They and their fancy caskets were place on display
in the window of a hardware store by their relatives to rile up indignation
against the Earps and Holliday. This is the only known photograph of Billy
Clanton.

Rustler Johnny Ringo was an expert shot and on at
least one occasion he almost had it out with Doc Holliday. Ringo was probably
involved in the ambush of Virgil Earp and the murder of Morgan Earp. He was
later found dead under mysterious circumstances. Though some later claimed he
was killed by Wyatt and Doc, they were actually in Colorado at the time.

Johnny Behan was the first sheriff of Cochise
County. Behan was Wyatt's primary rival. Originally he came to Tombstone as
Wyatt's replacement as deputy sheriff for the area when Tombstone was still part
of Pima County. Behan was friends with the outlaws and later did everything he
could to get Wyatt tried for murder.

Billy Breakenridge was deputy sheriff under
Sheriff Johnny Behan and was involved in many significant events in Tombstone's
early history. Later his story was ghostwriten by novelist William MacLeod Raine
in the book Helldorado (1928).

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Tombstone in 1879. The population of the town was
900 when the Earps arrived on December 1, 1879 and it doubled over the next two
months.

Street map of Tombstone on the
day of the Gunfight near the O.K. CorralOctober 26, 1881

The fire of May 25, 1882 destroyed most of the
western half of Tombstone's business district, including the O.K. Corral. The
previous year on June 22, 1881 a fire had destroyed most of the eastern half of
the business district. Since they didn't have water to put fires out with, they
had to try to contain fires by dynamiting buildings in the fire's path.

Allen Street at Fifth Street in 1880. The large
building on the left is the Grand Hotel, where many of the outlaws stayed when
in town. The one on the right is the Golden Eagle Brewery. Virgil Earp was right
in front of where the man is sitting when he was ambushed and severely wounded.

The Cosmopolitan Hotel on Allen Street. The Earps
moved here after the gunfight. Fearing attempts to assassinate them, they felt
they would be safer living here than in their houses.

The outlaws came to dominate the town of
Charleston and made it and Galeyville their headquarters. Charleston is about
ten miles southwest of Tombstone.

George
Parsons was a friend of Wyatt's who kept a
journal
recording every day of his seven years in Tombstone. His journal is one of the
most reliable sources available for this period of Tombstone's history.

When Ed Schieffelin went into Apache country to
search for silver, his friends told him he was crazy and that all he'd find was
his tombstone. When he discovered the first of several of the area's most
successful mines, he named that mine Tombstone. The town that quickly sprang up
was named after that mine. The mines made him a very rich man.

Ed Schieffelin

Buckskin Frank Leslie killed several people,
including Billy the Kid Claiborne, who was one of the survivors of the gunfight
near the O.K. Corral.

Tombstone taken in 1882

Newspaper: Tombstone Epitaph

Crystal Palace taken in 1881

This is an old picture.

Dick Naylor was Wyatt's horse.

Dick was stolen by Billy Clanton. When one of Wyatt's
informants told him where Dick was, Wyatt confronted Billy
and got his horse back.

I don't totally agree with the story below, I put it here because I
thought it was intresting.

If you want to know about the Gunfight at
the OK Corral, there's a few things you have to know first.

One of the most important facts to know
is:

There really WAS a Gunfight at the OK
Corral. This may seem an unnecessary point to western history aficionados. But
I've known Ph. D.'s that thought it was just a Zane Grey or Louis L'Amour story.
Nope, it really happened.

But even though there really was a
Gunfight at the OK Corral, there really WASN'T a Gunfight at the OK Corral. Or
rather what happened on October 26, 1881 in Tombstone, Arizona wasn't really at
the OK Corral. But years later, after just about everyone involved was dead and
gone, it DID happen at the OK Corral. If this seems confusing, it'll be
explained later. But you better get used to it. The Gunfight at the OK Corral
was without doubt the most confusing fifteen second gunfight in history.

And Wyatt Earp was really there, too, just
like the movies say. And so was his friend John Henry "Doc" Holliday. Wyatt's
brothers, Morgan and Virgil, were also there, as were a dozen or so
eyewitnesses, none of whom seemed to agree on what happened.

But let's forget about the Earps for a
moment. The fellow you really have to meet is the gentleman pictured above.
His name is Joseph Isaac Clanton. Everybody called him "Ike". Now that's
actually a pretty good thing. Certainly if you want to write about an Old West
shootout, it's a help to have a guy name "Ike". Joe Clanton doesn't really
quite have the right ring to it.

Ike lived on a ranch about 15 miles from
Tombstone with his younger brother Billy and an older brother Phineas. Earlier
their dad, Newman Hayes Clanton, usually called "Old Man" Clanton, ran the ranch
but was killed in a rather controversial altercation as he led some cattle up
from Mexico.

You won't hear much about Phineas and Old
Man Clanton. But you will hear a lot about Ike's friends, Tom and Frank McLaury,
who also had a ranch and worked pretty close with Ike and Billy. They all did
pretty well for themselves. In fact, Tom would sometimes act as a banker and
might be carrying a couple thousand dollars around with him when he was in town.

Now Ike and his friends are almost always
painted as the bad guys at the OK Corral. Or they are by about 90 % of the
historians and 100 % of the movies. They were rustlers, they say. So that
makes them bad guys, right?

Well, if by calling them rustlers you mean
they occasionally took cows that didn't belong to him, then you're probably
right. But that doesn't necessarily make them bad guys. At that time and
place, EVERY rancher would occasionally take cows that didn't belong to him. An
old timer from New Mexico once dismissed the issue by saying rustling was hardly
considered a crime at all - if you could get away with it.

But that doesn't mean there weren't some
pretty bad dudes that DID rustle cattle and weren't very nice about it, either.
And some of these guys would supplement their rustling income by high margin
enterprises like stage coach robbery and adding a little murder on the side if
it seemed necessary. Again the historians who side just a wee bit with the
Earps say that Ike, Billy, Tom, and Frank did business with this somewhat more
sordid element. But as you'll find out, at one time or another just about
anyone who was anyone had something to do with the more shady characters.

So all in all, Ike pretty much thought of
himself as a respectable a stockman, as did Tom and Frank. If they did any
rustling it with enough taste and discretion to keep it within socially
acceptable limits.

So they were all were set up and doing
pretty well for themselves when a new family named Earp rolled into town.

Everyone knows who Wyatt Earp was. Everyone. Not too
long ago a diplomat from the United Nations made a reference to Wyatt in one of
his speeches. And everyone knew who he was talking about.

Everyone knows he was a federal marshal, carried a long
barreled pistol called a Buntline Special, and was one of the most active gunmen
the West has ever seen.

Of course, everyone is wrong, too.

But he DID make law enforcement a major part of his
life. At least in his early years. Later though this interest faded out partly
due to age, and partly no doubt due to the murder indictments that hung over his
head.

But at twenty one, the young Wyatt was elected city
marshal of Lamar, Missouri (where his folks had a farm). Later he was appointed
assistant city marshal in the various Kansas cowtowns. Places like Ellsworth,
Wichita, and Dodge City all record Wyatt was a member of their police
departments. At Dodge he even served as a church deacon.

But he was never a federal marshal.

Between his stint as a lawman in Missouri and Kansas,
he did some time in what was then called Indian Territory. That is, he DID some
time, not spent it. He was arrested as a horse thief and wound up in the Fort
Gibson slammer.

Funny thing about Wyatt Earp. People either love him
or hate him. That was true a hundred and twenty years ago, and it's the same
now. No one is ever neutral. It seems everyone is divvied up either as "Earp
Champions" or "Earp Detractors".

In Fort Gibson, Wyatt never went to trial. The Earp
Detractors say he jumped bail. But the Earp Champions pooh-pooh this and point
out that the records show that when one of his (alleged) horse stealing buddies
went to trial, he was acquitted. So clearly, they say, the judge decided there
was insufficient evidence in holding Wyatt further and dismissed the charges.

All in all the Champions are probably right and Wyatt
was just simply let go. But to even things out for the Detractors, there is
enough left in the record to suggest he and his buddies WERE involved in various
and sundry skullduggery even if it didn't pass muster for a criminal conviction.

Wyatt wisely moved on to Ellsworth where he was hired
as assistant marshal and then later went to Wichita where he was given the same
job. His older brother James was there too and ran a saloon. Wyatt actually
came from a big family: there was Newton (a half brother), James, Virgil,
Wyatt, Morgan, and Warren. They were a very clubby bunch and were often winding
up in the same towns.

James was married to a lady named Bessie, and most
commendably for a lady in the middle nineteenth century, she decided to open her
own commercial establishment to supplement James' income. It got lots of
publicity, and the newspapers would courteously referred to Bessie's place as a
"sporting house." For those not familiar with the jargon of the times, she was
NOT selling tennis shoes, baseballs, or golf clubs.

But Wyatt got into the swing of being an assistant
marshal in Wichita and was highly praised as an efficient policeman. Even after
his former boss lost an election, the new marshal hired Wyatt again as an
assistant. But he didn't stay long since shortly after his reappointment he
beat up his former boss. It seems the losing marshal had made Bessie's sporting
house a campaign issue. Wyatt's rage was understandable perhaps, but assistant
marshals beating up their former bosses was frowned upon even then, and Wyatt
found himself out of work.

So Wyatt went on to Dodge, where he again was hired as
an assistant city marshal.

Like at Wichita, Wyatt got good marks as a lawman. He
was honest efficient, and a hard worker. Also the people liked the way he
handled the Texas drovers who tended to get rowdy after three months on the
trail. Now the mark of a good officer was to keep the drovers in control, but
not handle them so roughly that they'd take their business to other towns. "Too
roughly" meant plugging them. A dead drover was not only bad publicity, but
they rarely spent their $30 a month in the saloons or Bessie's sporting house.

So Wyatt adopted a cheap, effective, and for the
standards of the time, socially acceptable form of crowd control. It was called
"buffaloing". Simply put, to buffalo someone you yank out your pistol and slap
him upside of his head with the barrel. Now quieter and more docile, the fellow
could be led off to jail.

Maybe THIS is where the story of the Buntline Special
came from. If you want to buffalo someone it's best to use a long barreled Colt
.45. Smith and Wessons are supposedly inferior for buffaloing as they tend to
fly apart.

By now Wyatt had taken up with a lady named Celia
Blaylock. Everyone called her Mattie. Given her future history and Wyatt's
familial associations, possibly she had been a "sporting woman" like Bessie.
Though she called herself Mrs. Earp, there's no evidence she and Wyatt were
ever legally hitched. The same was true for Virgil and his wife, Allie, and for
Morgan and his wife, Louisa.

Now James. He WAS legally married to Bessie. Which is
weird.

Two of Wyatt's friends were also in Dodge about this
time. One was a literate, articulate, and dapper young fellow from Quebec,
Canada, who had spent some time with Wyatt out on the buffalo range. His name
was Bartholomew Masterson who for some reason signed his name William Barclay
Masterson. His friends (who were many) called him Bat. Bat's brothers, Ed and
Jim, were also in town, and Ed became city marshal. Bat himself wound up as
county sheriff and by all accounts was a good one.

Wyatt's other friend was a dentist named John Henry
Holliday. Originally from Georgia, he was a graduate of the Philadelphia
College of Dental Surgery. He set up his practice at Dodge, promising to
cheerfully refund his fee to anyone who was not fully satisfied. He evidently
was a pretty good dentist, too, since a crown he put in for a young patient in
1871 was still fully functional as late as 1967.

He was known (naturally) as Doc, but unlike Bat he
didn't have any friends other than Wyatt.

Even Bat who once finagled a way to keep Doc from being
extradited for murder didn't like him very much. In a newspaper interview years
later, Wyatt called Doc "that mad merry scamp with a heart of gold", but a
little after that Bat wrote that Doc had "a mean disposition and an ungovernable
temper" and " under the influence of liquor" (which was almost always) was a
"most dangerous man". Bat went on to add that Doc totally lacked all the
"leadership qualities" of men like Wyatt Earp and "was much given to both
drinking and quarreling and among those who did not fear him very was much
disliked." Most everyone who knew Doc seemed to agree with Bat.

Gradually Doc's practice faded. Whether due to his
cantankerous nature, his preference for gambling, or his tuberculosis that would
send him into coughing fits while ministering to his dwindling supply of
patients is anyone's guess. Probably it was all of them put together. Before
long he was spending virtually all his time drinking, gambling, and getting into
some rather spectacular arguments with his girlfriend, Kate Elder. As you may
have guessed by now, Kate was a "sporting woman" and, no, she and Doc never got
married.

Later Wyatt would testify under oath that Doc had saved
is life in Dodge City by helping him with a bunch of rambunctious cowboys.
Although there's nothing other than Wyatt's word on this, little else can
explain why Wyatt put up with Doc as much as he did.

The cowtowns never lasted long as cowtowns. Eventually
the residents who included increasing numbers of farmers got tired of both the
cattle drives and the cowboys, and one by one the cattle drives were outlawed.
So after a few years, Wyatt began to sense there wasn't much future in Dodge.
Besides he had begun to think buffaloing cowboys and risking his life for
between $50 and $125 a month wasn't really the way to a life of wealth and ease.
Maybe being a businessman was the way to go. But he probably didn't have any
real plans until he got a note from his brother Virgil who suggested that Wyatt
join him at a little speck on the Arizona map called Tombstone.

Virgil had been living in Prescott, Arizona, and like
Wyatt had worked into law enforcement. But his position was a little more
lofty. As a Union Civil War veteran and a Republican, he had managed to wrangle
an appointment as a deputy federal marshal and now hoped to make the most of it.

The job of a deputy federal marshal was high in status
but low in pay. Usually they did the strong arm stuff for the chief marshal who
usually sat on his rear end and handled the paper work. But a deputy's job gave
both credentials and experience for other jobs in law enforcement. In those
days before people worried about conflict of interest, you could hold several
jobs at once. It was possible for a man to be deputy federal marshal, the
county sheriff, the city marshal all rolled into one. There were practical
advantages to this, especially in cities that were only about three blocks long.
If someone caused a disturbance in the town you could follow him into the
surrounding county just by mentally putting on your sheriff's hat as you crossed
the city limits.

Better yet you could collect all the salaries. The
sheriff's job was the best. By skillful management of fee and tax collection,
you could pick up an extra $2,000 - $3,000 a month, and keep it pretty much
legal. That was good money in 1880, a time when cowboys made no more than $100
for a three month trail drive.

So about the time Wyatt was thinking about leaving
Dodge, Virgil heard that a silver strike had been made at Tombstone. His
federal appointment would still be good there, so he mosied on down. That
probably helped him get the job of city marshal. He needed an assistant, so he
called on Wyatt. In between marshalling, they figured they could stake some
mining claims. But rather than bust their heinies mining silver, they intended
to simply sell their mines to any and all takers. Wyatt also figured he could
obtain some gambling concessions at the various and numerous saloons that were
sure to spring up along the main street of the town. So Wyatt left Dodge with
Mattie, and they moved on to Tombstone.

As law officers, the Earps naturally came into contact
with the current county sheriff, Johnny Behan. Johnny had been appointed by the
governor, but now they were going to start electing their sheriffs. Wyatt
wanted the job too (and the money that went with it) so he decided to run as
well. Johnny, recognizing Wyatt's credentials and experience, told him that if
he, Wyatt, lost the election then he, Johnny, would make him his deputy sheriff.
Wyatt said he appreciated it, but if he won, he had his brothers to take care
of (Morgan and James had rolled into town by then) and he couldn't return the
favor. That was fine, said Johnny, he understood. He'd still appoint Wyatt
deputy. The two men parted amicably.

Probably through Johnny, Wyatt met Ike Clanton and Tom
and Frank McLaury. The Earps were often called in for posse duty and so were
the Clantons and McLaurys. All evidence shows they got along pretty well, and
would even work to help each other out. Later Tom even said Wyatt was a friend
of his.

Johnny won the election but didn't make Wyatt deputy.
He later said this was due to "personal reasons." The personal reasons might
have been Sadie Marcus, who called herself Josephine. As a matter of fact, she
called herself Josephine Behan, although like Mattie and Allie and Louisa, she
wasn't. But since she lived in the same house with Johnny and was helping raise
Johnny's son by his first marriage (Johnny was divorced), this seemed a good way
to avoid offending the more delicate minded townspeople.

The story is usually told that Johnny didn't appoint
Wyatt because Josie chucked him for Wyatt. That was pretty much Josie's tale,
too. She said she split up with Johnny because Johnny was a philanderer (which
he was), a liar (which he also was), had a weak character (which he did), and
because she thought Wyatt had more manly qualities.

The trouble with Josie's story is that there's evidence
that she left Johnny before she started associating with Wyatt. To make ends
meet (no pun intended) she may have made her living as (yep) a "sporting woman."
Tombstone old timers who remembered Josie took the story pretty much for
granted, and certainly in later life, Josie was vague (and inaccurate) about her
early days there. But the gist of the tale is probably true. Wyatt taking up
with Josie probably soured Johnny on Wyatt. So Wyatt didn't get the job.

And what about Mattie? Simple. Wyatt, the widely
respected law officer and former church deacon, just dumped her.

Now meet Ed Schieffelin.

Huh?

Ed who?

Yep, that's what most people say. But
American history, not to mention people like Hugh O'Brien, Kurt Russell, and
Kevin Costner, owe a lot to Ed Schieffelin.

That's because without Ed Schieffelin no
one would ever have heard of Wyatt Earp.

You see, despite the fact that Wyatt is
known as one of the most famous lawman in the West and one of the nerviest,
steely men with a gun, his reputation really rests on one, and only one,
gunfight. That is, of course, the Gunfight at the OK Corral.

Without that single gun battle, his days
spent in Ellsworth, Wichita, and Dodge would have been mentioned only in passing
- or more likely totally ignored - by historians. No newspapers would have
interviewed him in his later years, and he would never have been asked to
referee the Fitzsimmons/Sharkey fight in 1895.

And he would almost certainly never have
gotten involved in most of his later gunfights which - no matter how the Earp
Champions sanitize them - were mostly him blasting away at unarmed or
outnumbered men in revenge killings. Without the OK Corral, Hollywood would
have had to look elsewhere for a hero.

So to have the Legend of Wyatt Earp you
need to have the OK Corral.

And to have the OK Corral you need to have
Tombstone, Arizona.

And to have Tombstone, Arizona, you need
...

You guessed it. You need to have Ed
Schieffelin.

In 1877, Ed Schieffelin was a young man
trying to strike it rich in the West. So he was no different than thousands of
other men in the last part of the nineteenth century who wanted to make it rich
without working for a living and who after he made his bundle would just take up
and get out. Today Ed would probably be an aspiring CEO. But back then he had
to be a prospector.

Unlike most of his contemporaries, though
(and LIKE most CEO's), Ed did strike it rich. But not through any help of his
friends. When Ed said he would try his luck in southern Arizona, they tried to
change his mind.

Their main concern was that the Apache
Indians had been causing "difficulties." The Apaches said the land was theirs
and occasionally would have altercations with the prospectors like Ed who would
drift down from time to time.

But as usual the tales were exaggerated.
You'd be more likely to get killed by falling off your horse or by fording a
river. But Ed's friends still told him all he'd find down there was his
tombstone.

Instead he found a vein of silver that
assayed at $2000 per ton. At a time when $10 a ton was a good find, you
couldn't beat that. So he staked his claim and got rich.

But to show he was a good sport (and also
to rub it in a bit), he named the town that sprung up as "Tombstone." It's
still there today, about two hours south of Tucson. Now completely a tourist
town, it remains a popular side trip for money-laden business executives on
convention trips who will drive from as far away as Phoneix. "We love 'em," a
local resident recently said.

But in the late 1870's, it was typical of
a western mining boomtown. Virtually everyone there were young, footloose young
men, all bent on making a fast, easy buck. And to cater to their whims were
various and sundry merchants, storekeepers, and saloonmen, also intent on making
a fast, easy buck. And there were ranchers (like the Clanton's and McLaurys),
who hoped that raising (and sometimes rustling) livestock would make them a
fast, easy buck. And to top the citizenry off, you had miscellaneous
newspapermen, politicians, judges and businessmen, all also intent on making a
fast, easy buck.

And don't forget the Earps. Even they
(or perhaps we should say "especially they") were intent on making a fast, easy
buck.

It was probably the merchants who made the
fastests easiests bucks, though. Believing in the law of supply and demand long
before John Maynard Keynes did, they fit their business to their clientele.
Saloons, gambling, and dance halls were plentiful and with them up sprang the
ubiquitous "sporting houses." And when you got sporting houses, whaddaya get
with 'em? You bet - you get sporting women. In abundance.

There were also the more independent and
self-employed of these feminine enterpreneurs. Anticipating the modern
executive, they had (this is no joke) business cards printed up and boasted
their charms with prominently placed advertisements. Some showed considerable
ingenuity, and one ad boasted that "300 pounds of passion" were available for a
most moderate fee. You don't get creativity like that from the J. Walter
Thompson Agency .

But to balance things out there were also
a few churches and schools. Bowing to practical reality and to minimize the
forerunner of the modern tax revolt, the town fathers decided not to support
these public institutions from a direct levy.

So where would you turn to if you wanted
steady reliable revenue to support churches and schools in a town full of young,
hormone-ridden young men?

Yep, you'd slap a tax on the sporting
ladies and their establishments. And to make everything official and proper
(and simple), licenses were issued, and the resulting fees were earmarked for
the religious and educational institutions.

Brilliant.

The trouble with a boom town, though, if
you want to make money in mining, you have to be the first one there. Or at
least pretty close on the heels of the first one. Ed got rich, sure, but a lot
of other prospectors lost their shirts.

So if you weren't really cut out to be a
miner, rancher, farmer, newspaperman, or, of course, a"sporting lady", there was
one field you might try: land and mining speculation. If you were smart and
didn't really intend on settling there permanently, you could make good money at
it. And being no fools, that's what the Earps went in for.

Becoming a mining speculator was
relatively easy. You went out and staked a claim. Then you assayed your ore at
a good price. If it really didn't yield as much as much as you wanted, why a
little persuasion with the local assay office might help increase the amount of
silver found per ton. Or if the assayer was an honest man (and the problem was,
most of them were) there was no real reason why the ore you gave him REALLY had
to come from your claim. Then you could then sell your mine to some sucker - or
rather, some enterprising young man. Except for the filing fee, what you got was
all profit. Water rights could be similarly obtained and sold.

The Earps picked up a nice bit of change
there. Virgil also retained his deputy federal marshal's commision and was
hired as the town marshal. He made Wyatt his assistant. And if he needed more
help, he'd call in Morgan. Wyatt sometimes would serve as a guard for Wells
Fargo and Morgan would ride shotgun on the stage from Benson to Bisbee. James
stuck to his saloon.

Wyatt was also a "special policeman"
assigned to the Oriental Saloon. The Oriental was run by a man named Bucksin
Frank Leslie. He lived a colorful life to say the least. Once he shot a man in
the back, claimed self defense, and was acquitted. Naturally, he and Wyatt got
along well.

Now a special policeman assigned to a
saloon was a bit more elevated than a bouncer as it did have some official
status in the town government. But just sitting around keeping the peace could
get a bit tedious. You see, despite what the movies and TV portray, gunfights
were rare. Marshal Dillion might have plugged ten or twelve guys every week,
but the reality was a bit less exciting. Even during their most violent days,
the towns of Abilene, Ellsworth, Dodge City, Wichita, and Hays might average one
- count 'em - one fatal shooting every year or two. Sure, in a saloon an
occasional rowdy might have to be told to quiet down or get out, but most of the
patrons preferred to gamble and drink in peace.

So rather than read Shakespeare, discuss
philosophy, or double as a singing waiter, Special Policeman Earp took on the
added duties as a faro dealer.

No one plays faro much anymore. That's
because it's boring. You put your money on a layout which shows all the card
ranks. The dealer then turns up two cards. The first is a losing card and the
other is a winner. If your bet was on a loser, you lose; if it's on a winner you
win. Or you can put a copper marker on your bet; then if you lose, you win.

Got that?

And the modern casino owners don't care
for it much. Not because it's boring, but because it has a low house
percentage. Although one bet has an advantage of 16 % for the house, others
give only about 2 % and some are dead even. So given the rather complex rules
of betting, a player can get by with a disadvantage of only about 1%. Of
course, most miners (like some people even now) didn't even know what a house
percentage was, or if they did, they figured that a possible 1% loss for an
evenings entertainment was a good risk. After all, if you were lucky you might
clean up.

But what Wyatt didn't tell his customers
(and most modern casino owners won't tell their customers either) is that a
house percentage is not the average expected loss. It's the average RATE of
loss. So you keep betting long enough and you'll still lose all your money. It
doesn't matter if it's a pari-mutual horse race with 10 heats and a cut of 20%
for the state or a faro game with a 1% house advantage spread out over 500
hands. The money still ends up on one side of the table. And it ain't your
side, baby.

So here's the set-up. Around 1880 you
have the town of Tombstone, Arizona Territory, chock full of saloon keepers,
sporting women, crooked (and honest) politicians, newspaper editors, aldermen,
judges, and businessmen, all in town to make a fast easy buck. The Earps are
there, too, and by gambling, law enforcement, and mine speculation are making a
fast easy buck as well. And you have the Clantons and McLaurys about fifteen
miles away, making a fast easy buck by raising and selling their livestock with
a few other business interests thrown in for good measure.

In a town about three blocks long, you
might expect it wouldn't be long before the Earps and Clantons would bump into
each other.

And you'd be right.

In every movie and a lot of the books, the
Earps are always the "good guys" at the OK Corral. By default, the Clantons and
McLaurys are the "bad guys". After all, when Burt Lancaster (Wyatt, of course)
showed up in Tombstone, he was told by Virgil about the trouble the nasty
Clanton Gang was stirring up. Being a law and order man, this got Burt's- I
mean, Wyatt's - dander up and, by golly, he was going to use his authority as US
Marshal (!) to stop the Clantons and McLaurys from driving their (stolen) cattle
through Tombstone.

This naturally raised the hackles of the
cowboys and they swore they'd "git" Wyatt and his brothers. So the Clanton Gang
threw down the gauntlet to the Earps and told them to meet them at the OK
Corral. Being men among men, the Earps showed up on time and with a blaze of
gunfire fought a pitched battle against the Clantons and McLaurys with the help
of Johnny Ringo. To make the movie last a full hour and a half, the shootout
took up about fifteen minutes. Of course, the Clantons and McLaurys were
worsted.

Among the errors in this scenario, the
writers never quite explained why a federal marshal would waste his time with
that type of Mickey Mouse warrant or why the Clantons couldn't have simply
detoured a hundred yards around the city limits. Tombstone's a nice town even
today, but it ain't really all that big. But by now, of course, you should know
none of it really happen that way, anyway.

If you really dig into the history of the
Old West you find that the division between good guys and bad guys was really
pretty blurred. A man might steal horses one year (like Wyatt) and then pin a
badge on the next (again like Wyatt). A guy might pick up a few rustled cattle
(like Ike) and then risk his life by serving on a posse chasing down some bona
fide armed desperados (also like Ike). The truth is a lawman who did not have a
few crimes under his belt was very much the oddball. And there were a lot of
the famous outlaws (even Billy the Kid) who had officially served as deputies,
even if on a temporary and somewhat ill-defined basis.

So it's tempting to pin the good guy/bad
guy image on Hollywood. But that's not entirely true. Even back in the 1880's,
the people who lived in the West thought in terms of good guys and bad guys.
Actually that hasn't changed a whole lot even now. Just try talking politics
to your neighbor.

The immediate problem in Tombstone, though
- to use today's high falootin' professorial language - was that Wyatt and his
buddies and Ike and his friends came from two "highly polarized and distinct
socio-economic subcultures". Or simply stated (but pretty accurately), Wyatt's
crowd were Yankees (Virgil was after all a Union veteran) and newcomers and they
were all Republicans. Ike's friends - even at that time usually dubbed "the
cowboys" - were Democrats, generally had lived there longer, and had southern
leanings. So you can imagine that if Yanks and Rebs and Democrats and
Republicans don't get along too well now how it was like only fifteen years
after Appomattox.

Of course, you always thought of yourself
as a good guy. The bad guys were anyone who was different. So if you worked on
a ranch, you were a hard working stockman who busted your bun while the Yankee
carpetbaggers sat on their hunkers and made easy, sleazy, greasy bucks by mine
speculation, saloon keeping, and gambling (and don't forget the sporting
houses). On the other hand if you were a speculator or business man (and that
included gamblers, saloon keepers, and sporting women), you were convinced that
you were promoting law and order by bringing financial stability and
civilization to the wild and wooly. And one of your concerns would be the
rambunctious cowboys who were likely to shoot up the town whenever they came
around to drink and gamble at your saloon or visit your sporting house.

The newspapers didn't help too much
either. You'd have one paper (whose editor was a Republican) that would trumpet
about the "cowboy threat" and then there would be the other one run by a
Democrat who would complain about the unsavory characters that ran the various
saloons and sporting houses and made it dangerous to walk the streets. In fact,
the saloon where Wyatt had his faro game, the Oriental, was considered one of
the worst.

But despite all this hullabaloo, the
Earps, Clantons, and McLaurys actually got on pretty well. After all, they were
adults out to make a living and to some degree could put these largely imaginary
differences aside. They saw each other around town a lot and would willingly
serve together on the occasional posses that were called up. The Clantons and
McLaurys would visit the Oriental Saloon (though they preferred the Grand
Hotel), and they had no objection to sitting down with the Earps for a game or
two of faro or poker.

And the Earps and Johnny Behan had been on
friendly enough terms as well. After all, Virgil had known Johnny in Prescott
and both men were heard to say they considered themselves friends. Wyatt and
Johnny also maintained an amiable enough front as well. Both had earlier
served as deputy sheriffs under Charlie Shibell, and the two rival newspapers,
the Nugget and the Epitaph who rarely agreed on anything, praised both men and
even seemed sincere about it. Later Johnny became sheriff and had considered
Wyatt as the number one man for his deputy. And up until the day he died
(literally), Tom McLaury said that Wyatt was a friend of his.

But gradually what can be described as a
fairly friendly working relationship began to cool a bit. Certainly Wyatt
taking up with Josie didn't help much. Neither did both of them wanting the
same sheriff's job.

And there was the time time that Wyatt
went to get his horse only to find it had unaccountably been misplaced. As a
sometime lawman, Wyatt needed a good horse. And if this also allowed him to
supplement his income by wagering on his mount during the horse races that would
be held from time to time, so much the better. So he was a little miffed when
someone ripped off what was pretty much a top notch steed.

Happily, the horse was soon found. Not so
happily Billy Clanton was riding it. Evidently, the incident was written off as
a misunderstanding because about all that happened was that Wyatt got his horse
back. No charges were filed against Billy even though horse theft was a pretty
serious offense. But, no, it wasn't so bad that the perpetrator would be the
guest of honor at an impromptu neck tie party (like it is in the movies), but it
was still grand theft and could get you one to three years up in the territorial
prison in Yuma.

Then there was the time several government
mules ended up getting stolen. The Earps were part of the posse that went to
look for them. Find them they did - at the McLaury ranch. The story was that
Frank was even altering the brands. Again what really happened isn't quite
clear, but one of the army lieutenants did publicly accuse Frank of the
perfididty. This in turn riled Frank enough to make him take out a newspaper ad
asserting his honesty. Wyatt probably agreed with the lieutenant, but again no
official action was ever taken.

These episodes are used by the Earp
Champions to prove the cowboys were heavily into horse thievery, rustling,
murder, mayhem, jay-walking, spittin' on the streets, cussin', and other
nefarious activities. But the evidence couldn't have been too strong since
nothing was done. And you have to remember that Wyatt's own gambling and saloon
businesses sometimes got him and his brothers lumped in with the "tinhorn"
gambling element, which many of the citizens didn't care for too much either.

But even after all this, Wyatt and Ike
could still go to pretty elaborate lengths try to help each other out.
Particularly if there was money in it. This is best illustrated by considering
a little incident involving the Tucson to Bisbee stagecoach as it made it's
thrice weekly run through Tombstone. It was also this incident that by its
rather strange, circuitous , and contradictory meanderings ultimately led to the
Gunfight at the OK Corral. And of course, the legend of Wyatt Earp.

Today to get to Tombstone you get off the
interstate at Benson and drive twenty miles on a well maintained highway. But
in the 1880's Benson was a stop over for the stage that ran from Tucson to
Bisbee. Earlier the trip had taken two days but later when new waystations were
put in you could make it in only one. A long, slow, bone jarring, hot, dusty,
and tiring day, yes, but one day nonetheless.

On the evening of March 15, 1881, the
stage was rumbling its way toward Tombstone. And for once what really happened
could have come straight out of a Hollywood movie. Some vague shadowy forms
reared up and called for the driver, Bob Paul, to halt. Since Bob figured about
the the only person who would do that would be a road agent (as they were called
back then) who was intent on increasing his equity, he kicked up his horses and
began to get the heck out of there. And again just like in the movies, the
bandits opened fire. The stagecoach guard riding shotgun, Bud Philpott (or
Philpot) was killed and a passenger was also fatally wounded. But Bob got the
team away and took his stage on into Tombstone.

Now although violence between consenting
adults was sometime tolerated if limited to an occasional shootout in a saloon
or back alley, out and out murder of respected citizens during a robbery wasn't.
And that WOULD sometimes get the accused an EXTREMELY speedy trial. Well,
maybe a group of twenty citizens storming the jail and dragging the miscreant to
the nearest telegraph pole wasn't really a trial. But it sure was speedy.

But even that was rare. What usually
happened was what happened here. A posse was formed (and included both Johnny
Behan and the Earps) and headed out after the killers. They traced the trail to
a ranch where they found a man who claimed the hold up had been the work of
three men: Billy Leonard, Harry Head, and Jim Crane.

Now HERE's where it gets interesting.
VERY interesting. These guys were pretty bad dudes, no doubt about it. And
because of their particularly socio-economic class, they were neatly lumped in
as part of the "cowboy" faction. Ha! the Earp Champions say. Proof, if any were
needed, that the cowboy faction were in fact the lawless rogues of legend.

Well, maybe. But to make matters even
more interesting (and confusing), it was also well known that Billy Leonard had
one good friend who was definitely not lumped in with the cowboy faction.
And that was none other than Dr. John Henry Holliday.

Doc probably first met Billy in the
saloons and at the gambling tables when both men were living in Las Vegas, New
Mexico. Billy, like Doc, was a rather strange character. Supposedly he was
quite literate and skilled at various trades (including watch making and
repair), but he apparently was also had a rather unsavory character. But then
Doc wasn't really such a sweetheart himself. Both men liked to drink and gamble
so they got along pretty well. And now the two friends were both in Tombstone
and everyone knew it.

Maybe it was just guilt by association, or
maybe Doc really was involved. In any case, Doc 's name was soon being
mentioned as a member of the holdup gang. Some said he actually fired the fatal
shots. Johnny Behan, who was now sheriff of Cochise County, listened to this
talk and decided to do a little investigating.

Johnny figured the person to know most
about this - other than Doc himself - was Doc's girlfriend, Kate Elder (or Kate
Fisher or John Smith or whatever the heck she was calling herself then). Rumor
was that Doc thumped her when he got mad (which was pretty much always), and
Johnny figured that she'd probably be ticked off enough to rat on Doc. The
story goes that Johnny also got her plastered, but however he did it, he ended
up with a sworn statement from Kate that Doc was one of the holdup men. So Doc
was arrested.

As you might expect of a case where the
only evidence was an affidavit from a drunken ticked-off former sporting lady,
the whole thing was immediately thrown out of court. In Johnny's favor, though,
at that time and place confessions given while under the influence were
sometimes admissible in court. But it was still kind of a dumb thing to do,
because, boy, was Doc ever irritated at Johnny.

And Wyatt was still wanting to get the
sheriff's job. He somehow got the idea that Ike Clanton (he was a cowboy after
all) knew Leonard, Crane, and Head (sounds kind of like a law firm, doesn't it),
and by some suitable skullduggery Ike could help lure them into a trap.

So Wyatt approached Ike and offered him a
deal. If Ike would somehow get the three holdup men into Tombstone or
thereabouts, Wyatt could nab 'em. He'd give Ike the reward money and a bit of
extra out of his own pocket. Ike could also take over some choice land that
Billy Leonard had claimed and Wyatt would use the prestige of the capture to
help him get elected sheriff.

Wyatt later swore Ike agreed. Ike on the
other hand claimed he refused to have anything to do with it.

Now here's where things get REALLY
complicated. Somehow and from somewhere a rumor sprang up (possibly because Doc
was a friend of Wyatt's) that the stage holdup had actually been engineered by
EARPS, for crying out loud. According to this story the whole shebang had been
a sham to hide the fact the Earps (tin horn gamblers, remember) had skimmed off
a thousand or so dollars out of the stage's strong box. So Wyatt was a really
going after Leonard & Co. to bump them off so they wouldn't squeal.

It's hard to tell where this story came
from or how contemporary it was. But by the end of the year Ike was swearing
under oath that Wyatt had confessed the whole thing to him, and some old timers
from Tombstone for years after remained convinced it was true.

Really, though, the best bet is that
Wyatt's version is pretty much what happened. He probably did try to cut a deal
with Ike to nab he bandits and Ike may have agreed albeit with some trepidation.
After all, he could stand to make a bundle, but if word got out that he had
joined up with Wyatt to go after the Leonard et. al., he could be in a heap of
trouble with some really bad dudes. But it all became a moot point when Leonard
and Head were killed in a separate gun fight a little while later.

Almost a moot point that is. Somehow the
story got out about the deal. Leonard and Head were dead but Crane was still
around as were some of their other buddies. So now Ike had to go around telling
everyone who wanted to listen (and many who didn't) that the story wasn't true.
Ike? In cahoots with Wyatt? Never!

Naturally Ike telling everyone and his
mother that these stories were bunk also made it look like Ike was implying
that Wyatt was (to borrow a polite but hackneyed phrase) a low down Yankee liar.
And Doc, who always seemed ready to jump to quick (and wrong) conclusions, got
the idea that Ike was going around "threatening" his friend Wyatt Earp.

Here's what you've got by the fall of
1881. A stagecoach robbery that many believed Doc Holliday had a hand in (and
some still do), but at the same time there was Doc's best (sc. "only") friend,
Wyatt, trying to get Ike to help him nab the bandits. On top of this there were
the Earp Detractors who said the whole thing was a cover used by the Earps to
rip off Wells Fargo. And when everything fell through, Ike took to going around
town swearing on a stack of Bibles that whatever Wyatt said about him wasn't
true while the ever irascible Doc was convinced that Ike was making threats
against the Earps.

So that's the way it was, October 25, 1881
(sorry, Walter), when Ike Clanton was sitting at the counter in the Oriental
Saloon and Doc Holliday happened to walk in.

If you lived on a ranch in Arizona in the
1880's you usually looked forward to a day in town. Whatever you might say
about Ike and his ranching buddies, they did work pretty hard. Although today a
cowboy may have a bachelor's degree in Farm Administration or Feedlot Management
with a master's in Agricultural Economics added for good measure, they can still
put in an eighteen hour workday. So you can imagine what it was like in 1881,
and a day off was always welcome.

But it couldn't be just for fun and games.
After all, it took longer for Ike to get into Tombstone than it takes to fly
from New York to Toronto. So you usually had to wait until there was some
business reason to head on into town. But a boondoggle is a boondoggle in
whatever day and age.

On October 25, 1881, Tom McLaury and Ike
Clanton loaded up into a spring wagon and headed on into Tombstone. Tom had
some business to transact with a local butcher and probably also had some
banking business to attend to. Ike went with him mainly to pick up supplies for
the ranch.

When they got there they checked into the
Grand Hotel. In accordance with the city ordinances they left their guns at the
hotel. Tom, who according to Josie, was the hardest worker of the bunch, headed
off about his business.

Exactly what Ike did isn't clear. Since
he was there to pick up supplies supposedly he spent at least part of the next
14 or so hours doing just that. But when we next hear about him it was about
one o'clock the next morning and he was in the lunch room connected to the
Alhambra Saloon about to have what he called "a lunch".

If he was hoping for a nice leisurely meal
to aid his digestion, he was sadly mistaken. As he was about to take a bite,
Doc Holliday walked in. And Doc wasn't the type of man that furthered anyone's
gastrointestinal processes.

According to Ike, Doc began to "abuse"
him. That's a formal nineteenth century way to say Doc started cussin' him out.
Remember Ike had been going around saying he had not cut a deal with Wyatt to
bring in the stage robbers. Even if done tactfully that still means Ike was
calling Wyatt a liar. But since tact wasn't Ike's strongpoint, he probably
threw a few character references in as well. Whatever he had been saying on the
matter, Doc didn't like it.

Ike responded calmly and said he hadn't
threatened the Earps. Since the issues had been fully discussed at this point,
Doc anticipated the tactics of the modern political campaign and began to get
personal.

He said that Ike was "a son-of-a-[gun] of
a cowboy" and told Ike to get out his gun and "go to work." Scholars have
debated what Doc meant by "going to work" but most don't believe Doc wanted Ike
to pick up his pistol and rifle and head on back to the ranch. And of course he
really didn't say "son-of-a-[gun]" either. But this story is written for the
entire family.

Ike said that while Doc was cussin' him
out that Doc had his "hand in his bosom." Ike must have been nervous since what
he really meant was that Doc had his hand in his coat. Or maybe he meant his
bosom was in his hand. In any case, most historians believe (as did Ike) that
Doc was reaching for his gun. Ike told Doc he didn't have a gun.

"You're a [darned] liar," Doc replied, and
added "You son-of-a-[gun], you ain't heeled, go heel yourself." Again Doc
probably meant for Ike to get a gun since as far as is known Ike's boots were in
fine shape.

Wyatt and Morgan were in the lunch room,
too. Morgan also had his "hand in his bosom" according to Ike, who seemed to
see hands in bosoms wherever he looked. Wyatt, in his own version of the story,
said he was there too but didn't have his hand in this bosom. He was eating his
dinner and that might mess up his coat.

Wyatt said he told Morgan (who had been
acting as a special policeman for the last few weeks) that he should stop Doc
and Ike from quarreling. Even by the rather lax standards of nineteenth century
police procedure there's some doubt that Morgan did this in a proper and
business-like manner. Or maybe Morgan figured a good way to keep Doc and Ike
from quarreling was just to shoot Ike.

So Special Policeman Morgan officially
said to Ike, "Yes, you son-of-a-[gun], you can have all the fight you want
now."

Ike decided departure was the better part
of valor, and he went out. He also asked Doc and Morgan not to shoot him in
the back. About this time Virgil strolled up. Ike claimed Virgil did nothing to
stop the "abuse", but Virgil himself said he told Doc and Ike to cut it out or
he'd run them both in.

Virgil's story is probably true. Morgan
was affable but hotheaded, and Wyatt, who was usually pretty steady, sometimes
let his temper get the best of him. And Doc, of course, was a royal pain in the
rear end even at the best of times.

But Virgil was then and in later years
widely respected as a fair, level headed, and conscientious lawman. And he
would toss anyone in the hoosegow who was causing problems. Once Wyatt got
rambunctious and Virgil threw him in the slammer. Wyatt was fined $20 and paid
up. Virgil even hauled his friend John Clum in for speeding. At the time John
was not only the editor of the Daily Epitaph but he was also the mayor of
Tombstone.

Again nobody knows exactly what Ike did
after he left. Probably he wandered around a bit, pretty cheesed off at Doc and
Morgan. But finally he sat down in a poker game with Tom McLaury, Virgil Earp,
and some others. They played pretty much the rest of the night. We don't know
who won, but Virgil had his gun in his lap the whole time

After he finished his last hand, Virgil
got up and walked out. Virgil's story is that Ike followed him and griped about
Doc hassling him. Ike said he was going to get himself armed and Doc had to
fight. Virgil told him he was going to bed and didn't want Ike to cause any
trouble.

Virgil then went home and told Allie he
was trying to stop Doc Holliday and Ike Clanton from killing each other. Allie
said she didn't see why he bothered.

As dawn came stealing over the blue
Chiricahua Mountains, we find Ike sure enough HAD done exactly what he said he
was going to do. He had picked up his rifle and pistol and was wandering around
town looking for Doc. At some point, he decided to include the Earps in his
hunt as well. As the morning wore on most everyone in town soon knew what was
up, mainly because Ike kept telling them.

This is the point where the Earp Champions
lay blame for the Gunfight at the OK Corral on Ike. After all, he was wandering
about and for all appearances was intent on having a fight with Doc and the
Earps. They seem to forget that it was Doc who really started it all.

And if you look at how the courts of the
nineteenth century defined self-defense, it's likely that if Ike had found Doc
and blasted him, he probably would have been acquitted. Of course, since Ike
was wandering around making threats against Doc, if Doc had found Ike and shot
him, Doc probably would have been acquitted too.

This "I'm OK and Innocent/You're OK and
Innocent" philosophy of self defense may seem strange to those of us a hundred
or more years later, but it made good sense at the time. For all practical
purposes, most western shootouts could be classed as violence between consenting
adults, and it just wasn't worth the taxpayer's money to waste much time with
them. If you got in a scrap with someone and both of you wanted to shoot it
out, well, fine, if no one else got hurt.

But to make sure that any violence was
with the approval of all parties, when a gunfight erupted the winner couldn't
just hop on his horse and ride happily off into the sunset. That's fine in the
movies or TV, but in reality it didn't happen that way.

Instead if there was a gunfight and
someone got plugged, both pluggor and the pluggee (if he survived) would get
arrested and hauled into court. True, many of such cases never proceeded beyond
a preliminary hearing. If there was any semblance of self defense, the fellow
would usually be let loose and that was that. THEN he could ride off into the
sunset. The days of getting slapped with a multiyear megamillion dollar lawsuit
because you had violated the civil rights of the man who was about to blow you
away were long in the future. Now that didn't mean there wasn't room for some
pretty creative court rulings such as the time Judge Roy Bean fined a dead man
$40 for carrying a concealed weapon. But that was Judge Roy Bean.

So before we rejoin Ike, let's look at
some bonafide documented cases.

Buckskin Frank Leslie was the bartender of
the Oriental Saloon (where Wyatt had his faro game). Once he got into an
argument with a young cowboy for some reason. Frank was a hefty, no-nonsense
type of guy and just gave the young cowboy the old heave-ho. Frank later
learned that the fellow was waiting out front with a gun hiding behind a fruit
stand. Frank got wind of this, walked out a side door, and shot him.

Plea? Self-defense.

Verdict? Not guilty!

Well, Frank did say he called a warning
first.

A few years later an assistant marshal of
Dodge City, Mysterious Dave Mather, got voted out of office and was replaced by
a fellow named Tom Nixon. Shortly after the election Tom took a shot at Dave,
who got off with nothing more than a splinter in his finger. Tom was arrested
and charged with attempted murder.

Now it seems strange that Tom was the one
to take a plug at Dave and not the other way around. But there were some bad
feelings between the two men above and beyond the assistant marshal's job. For
one thing, the two men had interests in rival saloons, and Dave was selling his
beer at less than half the rate of Tom's. It was also said that Dave was
fooling around with Tom's wife. Whatever the cause, Mysterious Dave was
evidently in a forgiving mood because he declined to prosecute.

Well, if Dave thought that to forgive was
divine, Tom sure as heck erred by not finishing Dave off. A few days later Dave
walked up behind Tom and softly called, "Tom, oh, Tom!" Before Tom could turn
Dave shot him in the back. Now it was Dave's turn to get arrested. This time
for murder.

Plea? Self-defense.

Verdict? Not guilty!

Even as late as 1908, you had the same
sort of thing ,and it involved none other than Pat Garrett, the man who shot
Billy the Kid. Pat was in his late fifties then and had settled down to a not
too profitable ranching venture outside of Las Cruces, New Mexico. He was going
into town with a young man named Wayne Brazel who had leased part of Pat's
ranch. At one point Pat got a bit nasty with Wayne about the details of the
arrangement. Wayne was riding his horse alongside Pat's buckboard and later
when Pat got down to take a pee, Wayne shot him in the back. Pat died almost
immediately. Wayne, who said that Pat had "threatened him", was arrested.

Plea? Self-defense.

Verdict? Not guilty!

So maybe Allie's advice to Virgil was
probably the best. If Virgil had let Ike and Doc settle it themselves, there
would have been a lot less trouble for everyone.

But Virgil took his law enforcement
responsibilities seriously. Around eight o'clock, one of Virgil's deputies,
Andy Bronk, came in and told Virgil that Ike was walking around with a gun, and
that "there was likely to be [heck]." Virgil thought for a moment and decided
if Ike was only shooting his mouth off and not much more there wasn't much to
get worried about. So he went back to bed.

Now carry firearms around town was
illegal. But bowing to practicality, it was understood that if you kept the gun
hidden, you were usually OK. Unlike the movies you rarely saw anyone walking
around town with a gun and holster complete with cartridge loops and leg straps.
Guns were typically shoved into pockets (front or hip) or trouser waistbands
and you wore a coat or a long shirt to cover them up. Some people would have
special coats with the pocket slit so you could reach into your pocket and grab
the gun. Wyatt himself went so far as to have his coat pocket lined with
leather so the pistol wouldn't snag. The main thing was to keep it out of
sight.

And it was all right to be armed if you
were just coming into or leaving town. Maybe that's what John Clum, Tombstone's
mayor, thought when he saw Ike. John hadn't heard of the hiatus with Ike and
Doc. He just saw Ike carrying around a rifle and didn't get too excited. If
anything, he thought it was a joke.

"Hello, Ike," he called, "any new war?"
John then went about his business, no doubt chuckling at his own wit.

The trouble was Ike was being a bit
ostentatious, and he kept telling everyone how he was going to get Doc and the
Earps. One of Ike's unwilling listeners was Ned Boyle the bartender at the
Grand Hotel who bumped into Ike on the street. Ike told Ned that he was waiting
for Doc and the Earps to show up so he could have it out. Ned told Ike forget
about it.

Ned then went to Wyatt's house and told
him what Ike was up to. Wyatt seemed puzzled and wondered what the heck had
gotten into Ike.

Then Ike went into Julius Kelly's bar and
started telling everyone he was looking for the Earps. By George, they had
threatened him when he wasn't heeled, and now he was ready.

You'd think Ike was working his way
through the city directory to hear about it. Now off he wandered now to
Hafford's Corner Saloon and talked to the owner. Again he said the same thing,
that he was looking for Doc and the Earps. Now he added that they had agreed to
a showdown at high noon. Mr. Hafford pointed out it was ten minutes past and
told Ike to forget it.

Ike kept rambling about town, and in an
amazing flash of insight, decided if he wanted to find Doc, by golly, he might
try looking where Doc lived. So he headed over to the boarding house owned by
Camillus Fly where Doc lived with his girlfriend, Kate Fisher.

But even here he didn't seem to try all
that hard. He just stuck his head in, looked around, and walked out. But Mrs.
Fly was a bit upset to see the bleary-eyed Ike in her house with a Winchester.
She told Kate, and Kate went in to wake up Doc. She said Ike had a rifle and
was looking for him.

"If God will let me live to get my clothes
on," Doc piously said, "he shall see me." Evidently Doc felt that a gunfight
called "The Nude Gunfight at the OK Corral" would look pretty ridiculous in the
history books. Besides, it was cold that day.

It's kind of funny. Ike spent the whole
morning looking for the Earps and Doc, and everyone except Ike seemed to have no
problem finding them. About the only conclusion you can draw is Ike wasn't
really all that anxious for a shootout. If left alone he probably would have
gotten tired (he hadn't slept that night) and then gone on back to the hotel.
He could then have gone to bed convinced that everyone in town now knew how Ike
Clanton had stood up to the Earps. And the thing would have blown over.

But Ike didn't know when to quit. His
wandering around town for five or six hours, visibly armed and threatening to
plug Doc (at least) and the Earps (if they so chose) was too much for a lot of
people. So about noon, Virgil had gotten tired of people telling him about the
Odyssey of Ike Clanton and decided he'd have to do something. So he got out of
bed, and like Doc, figured a lawman would be more effective with his clothes on.
So he got dressed and out he went.

Ike spent all morning looking for the Doc
and the Earps and didn't find them. It took Virgil about two minutes to find
Ike.

There was no Miranda ruling back then.
None of that "You have the right to remain silent" stuff. And no lawman who
wanted to live long enough to run for re-election tried the Matt Dillon
bullshine routine of "Hold it! Drop your gun!" either. Instead Virgil saw Ike,
walked up behind him, and slapped him upside the head with his revolver.

He then said "You [darned] son-of-a-[gun],
we'll take you up here to Judge Wallace's office." And that's where they went.

Ike's day in court is interesting if for
no other reason it was witnessed by some fairly impartial individuals. And as
usual when this happens the stories vary somewhat from how the major
participants tell it, and none of them seem to come off all that well. The
Earps don't seem quite the staunch upstanding lawmen intent on preserving law
and order and Ike didn't seem to be much of a innocent injured party simply
trying to defend himself.

The judge wasn't there so someone went off
to fetch him. Morgan and Wyatt also showed up and they began where Doc left
off.

Wyatt no doubt was a man who had plenty of
courage but here he didn't show it too well. With Ike sitting there with his
head banged up, unarmed, and outnumbered three to one, Wyatt said that Ike was a
"[darned] dirty cow thief" and offered to fight him anywhere. Morgan then added
"I'll fight you anywhere or any way."

"All I want is four feet of ground," Ike
said. Perhaps he was still a bit woozy from getting slapped in the head since
he had a whole ranch already. He went on to show his concern about increasing
the business opportunities and income of Tombstone's public servants. "If you
fellows had been a second later I would have provided a coroner's inquest for
the town."

The razzing continued until the judge
showed up and fined Ike $25 for carrying firearms within the city limits. He
threw in $2.50 for costs. It makes you wonder how much the judge got paid.
Virgil told Ike he would leave his arms at the Grand Hotel. Ike paid up and
left.

Then right after court, Wyatt ran into Tom
McLaury. Wyatt was still ticked off at Ike, but he figured Tom was a good
substitute.

Tom said he wasn't, and from what some of
the by-standers said, it appears that Tom was more interested in finding out
what the heck was going on than picking a fight with Wyatt. Now Tom may have
been a bit miffed at what had happened to Ike, but he wasn't particularly nasty
about it. One witness even heard Tom say he had always been a friend of
Wyatt's. But then he added that if Wyatt wanted to fight he would fight him
anytime.

Bad move, Tom. You just didn't say
something like that to Wyatt Earp.

"All right, make a fight here!" barked
Wyatt. And Wyatt being Wyatt Earp yanked out his gun and slapped Tom on the
side of the head.

"I could kill that son-of-a-[gun]", Wyatt
said to no one in particular as he strolled off to have a smoke.

Like the meaning of life, the purpose of
black holes, and if a falling tree makes any noise if nobody is around, the
question of whether Tom McLaury was armed that day has become one of the great
unanswered mysteries of the universe. At this time though Tom probably wasn't.
If he did Wyatt could have - or at least should have - hauled him off to jail.

Now with both Ike and Tom not feeling
their best, outnumbered, and with the city marshal and his deputies (not to
mention Doc) considerably irritated with them, it's possible they would have
gotten the heck out of town. Or at least that's what they should have done.

But then Ike's brother Billy and Tom's
brother Frank happened to ride into town.

Suddenly the odds had evened out.

Like everything else about the Gunfight at
the OK Corral, there's at least two mutually exclusive versions why Billy and
Frank came into Tombstone on October 26, 1881. One story has it that after Ike
and Tom got buffaloed they sent a telegram to Billy and Frank telling them to
come on into town. With the sides evened up the cowboys could now clean up the
Earps and Doc with no trouble.

It doesn't take much figuring to realize
that's not very likely. After all, Western Union didn't have direct access to
the Clanton and McLaury ranches back in 1881. And since Billy and Frank showed
up just an hour or so after Ike and Tom got clobbered, there just wasn't the
time for the telegrams to go flying out from Tombstone to summon Billy and
Frank. Even with an added surcharge it's unlikely Western Union could have sent
two of its employees to chase them down before they got into town. So when
Billy and Frank checked into the Grand Hotel, they certainly had no idea what
was going on.

Actually Frank (like Tom) had some
business to transact, and Billy probably came in to help Ike haul back the
supplies. And no doubt they figured if Tom and Ike were in town having a good
time, drinking, gambling, and visiting the sporting ladies, so could they. Of
course, by this time Tom and Ike weren't really having such a good time.

As luck would have it, the first thing
Frank and Billy did was bump into Doc Holliday. You should know by now that Doc
would immediately start cussin' Billy and Frank out, call them sons-of-[guns] of
cowboys, and tell them to get out their guns and go to work.

Nope, not this time. All Doc did was walk
up to Billy and in a most friendly manner shake his hand.

"How are you?" asked the world's most
inexplicable gun-toting dentist with a cheery smile.

Finding Doc Holliday acting pleasant must
have really shaken Frank up. He decided to have a drink.

As Frank stepped to the bar, a young
cowboy named Billy Allen sidled up. He asked Frank if he had heard about the
trouble his brother and Ike were having and added that Tom had gotten smacked on
the head by Wyatt Earp.

"What did he hit Tom for?" Frank asked.

Billy said he didn't know.

"I will get the boys out of town," Frank
said. "We won't drink."

At least that's the way Billy Allen told
it. Earp Champions are quick to label him as a cowboy "partisan", and are
convinced the story of a subdued Frank wanting to avoid trouble is a dastardly
lie from beginning to end. The Earp Detractors point out the story was
delivered under oath and is proof that Frank, Tom, Billy, and Ike were doing
everything they could to avoid a confrontation with the bullying, arrogant, and
murderous Earps.

So why, the Earp Champions ask smugly, did
Frank and Billy immediately troop over to a gun shop and begin to stock up on
cartridges? That was a funny thing to do if they wanting to get out of town in
a hurry. But apparently that's what they did, and a lot of people saw them.

Normally a group of cowboys in a gun shop
wouldn't attract much attention (Tom and Ike had joined them by then). But
people tend to pay more attention to such things when two of the men had been
slapped upside the head by the city law officers. And when one had been
wandering around all morning rather ineffectually looking to "open the ball"
with half the city police force, people really sit up and take notice.

And remember, despite what you see on
movies and television, most people did not, repeat NOT, walk around the western
towns visibly armed. So a pretty good crowd developed as Billy and Frank
stuffed bullets into their gunbelts. Included were not only the sundry worthies
and loafers about town, but also Frank McLaury's horse who with all the others
had walked up on the sidewalk to have a peek.

On a television show what would happen now
is one of the guys on the "other side" would walk up and try to start a fight.
Or at least try to get the other fellows goat. That shouldn't happen in real
life, but it did happen here: Wyatt Earp came walking by.

And what he saw riled lawmen's instincts
to the core. Flagrant violation of the city ordinances! Sheer effrontery on
the part of the lawless cowboys who should have been spending their time at his
faro game rather than thumbing their nose at the law of the land! As a lawman
whose jurisdiction included the whole of the Oriental Saloon, he had to take
action.

But he didn't walk up and buffalo Tom and
Billy and haul them in for carrying firearms in town (which he could have done).
Instead he saw there was a far more heinous crime in progress.

That is, Frank's horse was standing on the
sidewalk. This was sort of a nineteenth century equivalent to double parking.
His law and order instincts taxed to the utmost (and also to irritate Frank a
little), Wyatt took hold of Frank's horse and led him back to the street.

Saloonkeeper Robert Hatch had seen Wyatt
go to the gunshop. He knew the McLaurys and the Clantons were there too and
hurried away to find Virgil. The townspeople were no longer amused at what was
going on and were getting decidedly nervous.

"For [gosh] sake," Hatch said when he
found Virgil. "Hurry down there to the gunshop, for they are all down there,
and Wyatt is all alone! They are liable to kill him before you get there!"

But all that happened was Frank came out
and told Wyatt to leave his horse alone.

"You will have to get this horse off the
sidewalk," replied Wyatt. "It's against the ordinances." And having made his
point (whatever that was), he went on his way.

After the Clantons and McLaurys left the
shop, they walked down the street and over to the OK Corral. Depending whose
side you're on, you can either believe they were plotting to ambush the Earps or
doing their best to quietly leave town. As a legal ruling was later to state,
"witnesses of credibility" would swear to both.

That's one of the problems with the
Gunfight at the OK Corral: there were few objective and impartial witnesses.
Most everyone involved had an ax to grind and would have done almost anything
to get the other fellows over a barrel. This is a tradition, by the way, that
is maintained to this day by modern Western historians and writers, especially
if they write about the Earps. Those boys (and gals) can get downright nasty
with each other. So who do you believe?

What we need here is someone who had never
met nor heard of any of the Earps, the Clantons, or the McLaurys, but who
nevertheless had overheard important and incriminating discussions of those
involved. You'd also want this same person to be an eyewitness to the whole
shebang that followed. Naturally, you would also prefer someone who would have
absolutely no motive to tell anything except the whole unvarnished truth about
what he saw and heard.

Now if you guess that that would mean we
have to find someone who didn't even live in Tombstone and who would by some
amazing stroke of luck just happen to stroll by when people were talking about
blasting the other guys away, you'd be perfectly correct. But if you feel that
you might as well wish for a million tax free dollars while you're at it, oddly
enough you'd be wrong. There was, in fact, someone who fit this bill perfectly.

His name was H. F. Sills and he was a
railroad engineer who was stopping over at Tombstone. He had never met nor even
knew of the Earps, the Clantons or the McLaurys. He knew nothing of any of the
political bickering and factionalism or about the "cowboy" or "tin-horn gambler"
threats and probably couldn't have cared less.

After getting into town, he headed down
Allen Street and passed the OK Corral. As he walked by he saw a bunch of men
standing off to the side and talking rather loudly. Normally, he wouldn't have
thought much of it except he heard them say they were going to get someone named
Virgil Earp and kill him on sight.

Mr. Sills walked on and asked a bystander
who Virgil Earp was. He was told he was the town marshal. In fact he happened
to be standing just a ways off and was pointed out. Sills walked up to him.

"Is your name Earp?" he asked.

Virgil said it was.

"Are you the marshal?" Sills again asked.

Virgil said he was.

Mr. Sills then told Virgil what he had
heard and repeated that the cowboys said they would "Kill them all."

If Virgil thought that all had to deal
with was Ike shooting off his mouth, he now began to think the situation was a
bit more serious. So he went to the Wells Fargo office and picked up a shotgun.
About this time a number of other people had approached Virgil and offered to
help.

By now the cowboys had walked on through
the OK Corral, using it as a shortcut from Allen to Fremont street. The next we
hear of them they were all standing in the vacant lot between Fly's boarding
house and another boarding house owned by William Harwood. Fly's boarding
house, of course, was where Doc Holliday lived.

What can you conclude when you have a
group of men who had just been overheard plotting to kill the city marshal and
were now waiting by the abode of the man who they think started it all? It
would seem pretty clear now that by this time the Clantons and McLaurys had
decided to postpone their return trip home and really had decided to blast Doc
and the Earps.

With the motives and intentions now so
evident and the good guys and bad guys at last so clearly identified, its a
shame to have to muddy everything up again. Actually, it appears that rather
than lay in wait for the Earps and Doc, Frank simply turned right and walked two
doors to Bauer's Meat Market. He started talking with the butcher on duty,
James Kehoe, about some money he owed the firm. Which was why Frank came to town
in the first place.

And to REALLY muddy things up, now Johnny
Behan decided to help out. Remember Johnny Behan? The sheriff of the county
who had tried to nail Doc for stage robbery by getting his girl friend
plastered? The Johnny Behan who couldn't stand Wyatt, not only because Wyatt
was about ten times the lawman Johnny was, but also because Wyatt had snitched
Johnny's girlfriend?

Yep, that's the Johnny Behan we're talking
about.

Somehow, the same Johnny Behan - good old
affable, smooth talking, philandering Johnny - had managed somehow to have
absolutely no idea what was going on. He had remained blissfully ignorant of
Doc and Ike's altercation the night before, Ike trooping around town all morning
with a rifle and pistol, not to mention Ike getting buffaloed by Virgil and
hauled into court. And of course, Johnny had completely missed any news of Tom
getting his head thumped by Wyatt. To miss all this in a town the size of
Tombstone takes rare skill.

Finally despite his best efforts, Johnny
heard something about what everyone else had been talking about for the last
eight to twelve hours. He was in the barber shop getting a shave when someone
came in and said there was trouble brewing between the Earps and the cowboys.
Johnny asked the barber to hurry along.

Johnny's version (of course) tends to
paint the Earps a bit different from the upstanding law officers intent on
preserving the peace. According to Johnny, he found Virgil on the street and
asked what was going on. Virgil (again so says Johnny) replied that there were
a lots of sons-of-[guns] around town that were looking for a fight. Johnny told
Virgil (so he claimed) he should disarm them. Virgil replied (once again
according to Johnny) that he wouldn't do that. He'd kill them on sight.

Virgil in HIS version of the conversation
said that he was going to disarm them and asked Johnny to help him. He said
Johnny refused, saying they'd get killed.

"Those men have made their threats,"
Fellehy remembered Virgil saying. "I will not arrest them, but kill them on
sight." Some think this proves Fellehy was a member of the cowboy faction.
Actually he ran a laundry.

So the best guess is Virgil probably did
make this (for him) most uncharacteristic reply. But by this time Virgil was so
fed up with Ike and his friends that he probably would have liked to plug them
all, if for no other reason just to shut them up. But as you'll see, Virgil was
still a lawman, and his rhetoric here was a more extreme than his actions.

Johnny hadn't quite given up, though.
After all, he was the sheriff. Since he was more friendly with the McLaurys
and Clantons than the Earps, he thought maybe he could make things simmer down
if he talked to them alone. So he headed off to find the cowboys.

But Virgil had finally decided enough was
enough. He managed to collect Morgan and Wyatt and decided to go arrest the
Clantons and McLaurys. He probably wouldn't have been too sorry to throw in a
few more buffaloings either.

As luck would have it after they started
down the street Doc came up. With the weather so cold and windy, his
tuberculosis was acting up and he was walking with a cane.

"Doc, this is our fight," Virgil said.
Doc really had no business mixing in here but as usual he managed to make
trouble.

"That's a [heck] of a thing to say to me,"
Doc grumbled.

Virgil later claimed he deputized Doc on
the spot. This wasn't a smart move on Virgil's part, but maybe he just realized
that Doc, being Doc, wasn't going to go away if asked. However it was done,
Virgil let Doc come along. He handed his shotgun to Doc and took Doc's cane.
Doc stuck the gun under his overcoat.

The Earps headed up Fourth Street and
turned the corner at Fremont. There they saw Johnny with the cowboys. They
headed on down the street.

Back by Fly's boarding house, Johnny had
been trying rather ineffectually to arrest the whole bunch. He told Tom and
Frank they had to give up their arms or get out of town. Tom said he was
unarmed. Johnny checked him out (but not thoroughly he would later admit) and
found nothing. Well, he couldn't very well arrest a man for carrying arms when
he wasn't carrying any, could he? Chalk up this victory to Tom.

He said the same thing to Billy Clanton.
Billy said he was just leaving town.

Dang! That really threw a monkey wrench
into things. You were allowed to carry guns if "in good faith" you were
entering or leaving town. So what could Johnny do?

"Well, if your leaving town, all right,"
said the ever firm and in command Johnny.

He told Ike to give up his guns. Ike also
said he was unarmed. Johnny checked out Ike. Again, no guns.

Frank was still talking to James Kehoe in
front of Bauer's Meat Market.

"Frank, I want you to lay off your arms
while you're in town," Johnny said.

"Johnny," Frank replied, "as long as
people in town act so, I will not give up my arms."

"Well, I want you to go up to the
Sheriff's Office and lay off your arms."

"You need not take me," said Frank, "I'll
go." Johnny was probably surprised at his effectiveness.

Just then someone called out, "Here comes
the Earp boys!" Johnny turned and saw them heading his way. He told Frank and
his friends to stay put.

He headed on to meet the Earps.

In Bauer's Market at this time, Martha
King had been trying to get the clerk to wait on her but everyone was standing
looking out the windows. She didn't know the Earps but she did know Doc (whom
she called Mr. Holliday). As the group walked by on the sidewalk she heard one
of the Earps (Morgan, actually) speak to Doc.

"Let them have it," Morgan said.

"All right," answered Doc.

Mrs. King, showing quite a bit more sense
than the men, hurried toward the back of the store.

Johnny had now walked up to meet the Earps
and told them not to go any further. That he was there for disarming the group.
Fed up with Johnny as well, Virgil didn't say anything and just kept going.

Both Wyatt and Virgil would remember that
Johnny had said he had ALREADY disarmed everyone. So Wyatt putt his gun back in
his pocket. Virgil's gun was also out of sight and he only held Doc's cane.

Morgan though had his gun in his hand and
Doc was holding Virgil's shotgun under his coat.

Johnny Behan was no Wyatt Earp. If it had
been Wyatt trying to handle things, everyone would have been lying with sore
noggins on the streets or would have been hauled off to jail by the scruff of
the neck . As it is Johnny just called out:

"For [gosh] sake, don't go down there or
you will be killed!"

The Earps moved on. Johnny kept following
telling them to stop. "Expostulating" with them, was the way Johnny put it.

Whatever Johnny did say, both Virgil and
Wyatt were expecting to see the cowboys without guns. But instead when they got
to the vacant lot, Frank and Billy still had their pistols and Frank and Tom had
rifles in the scabbards of their saddles.

Doc walked up to Frank and put his gun to
Frank's stomach. He then stepped back a foot or two.

Wyatt looked at the group and shouted,
"You sons-of-[guns] have been looking for a fight and now you shall have it."

Virgil called out, "I have come to arrest
and disarm you!"

Then finally, at last, something happened
that everyone present would all swear actually happened: Virgil barked out one
final command.

"Throw up your hands!"

A historian once remarked that "The Gunfight at the OK
Corral" sounds a lot better than "The Gunfight on the Vacant Half of Lot 2 of
Tombstone City Block 17 Between Camillus Fly's Boarding House and Photography
Shop and the House Owned by William Harwood." It fits the movie marquees a lot
better too.

But that's where it really happened.

Of course all the western writers and historians know
the Gunfight at the OK Corral didn't happen at the OK Corral. And it's actually
an indication that you're among the Western intellegenisia if you know that.

Some historians have even been known to try to impress
members of the opposite sex with this. In a singles bar, they'll walk up, and
say, "Hey, babe, did you know the Gunfight at the OK Corral really didn't happen
at the OK Corral? It was on the Vacant Half of Lot 2 of Tombstone City Block 17
Between Camillus Fly's Boarding House and Photography Shop and the House Owned
by William Harwood." A lot of historians go home alone, too.

And in their books they always explain it didn't happen
there. Then they go ahead and call it the Gunfight at the OK Corral.

Actually one writer had a neat way around this. He
called it the Gunfight NEAR the OK Corral.

Of course, the whole point of writing (and reading) a
600 page history book is you hope to find out what really happened. And so it
can come as a surprise to find out that, nobody, but nobody really knows what
happened at (or near or close to) the OK Corral. And that includes the guys who
were there.

But it's still fun trying to figure it all out.

And to do that, professional historians will tell us,
you need to go to "contemporary sources". None of that "oral history" jazz
where someone tells what happened fifty years after the event. And no
"secondary sources" (which are books written by other writers). Nope, you need
to know what the people said right then and there.

So what you do is read everything that was written at
the time, be it newspapers, court records, letters, and diaries. Then toss out
(or at least "reconcile") the parts that don't agree with each other. Then
what's left over will most likely be reasonably close to what happened.

The trouble with the Gunfight at [sort of] the OK
Corral is that other than Virgil calling out "Throw up your hands!", nobody can
really agree on anything. Still all is not lost. If you DO wade through all
that stuff, what you get is better than the truth. You end up with TWO
accounts: one tailor made for the Earp Champions and the other for the Earp
Detractors. And then you can spend the next hundred or so years arguing about
it.

Which is really a lot more fun than finding out what
really happened.

So first let's look at Version 1. In a nutshell it's
this:

When Virgil told the Clantons and McLaurys to "Throw up
your hands!" the cowboys did as they were told. Then the Earps blew them away.

Naturally this is preferred by the Earp Detractors.

Now on to Version 2.

When Virgil told the Clantons and McLaurys to "Throw up
your hands!" the cowboys drew their guns and began to shoot. Then the Earps, in
self-defense, blew them away.

And is what happened according to the Earp Champions.

Now let's check out Version 1 in more detail. This
comes to you courtesy of Johnny Behan, Ike Clanton, and their friends with a
little help from some of the by-standers.

When the Earps pushed on by Johnny Behan, all the
Clantons and McLaurys were wanting to do was leave town. But when Virgil walked
up and called out for the cowboys to throw up their hands, they, honest and law
abiding stockmen and ranchers, did so. They put up no resistance and all were
willing to do as the city marshal commanded.

And young Billy Clanton, a lad of a scant nineteen
summers who had never been in any difficulties (other than trying to put the
moves on Josie a few times), not only raised his hands but also called out to
the Earp party that he did not intend to resist.

"Don't shoot me!" he said. "I don't want to fight!"

And Tom, the stalwart citizen who had willingly checked
his gun when he came into town (remember Frank was the one who stole the
government mules), opened his coat to show he was unarmed.

"I haven't got anything, boys!" he called. "I am
disarmed!"

So with a group of men standing before him, either
unarmed or with their hands raised and begging for their lives, Doc Holliday,
ever the gambler, suddenly liked the odds.

So he shot Frank in the belly.

The next shot - which occurred almost at the same time
- was from Morgan. It hit Billy in the chest.

Keeping tabs of who shot who in a gunfight can not only
be difficult but also hazardous to your health. But Ike swore Morgan shot at
Billy. He knew this, he later said, because he saw Morgan's pistol pointed
within two to three feet of Billy's "bosom" (Ike really did seem to have a thing
about bosoms) and he saw the gun go off.

At this point, as Johnny Behan later said, the fighting
became "general."

Frank, in a move that could have gotten him in trouble
with the local chapter of the SPCA if he had lived longer, tried to take cover
behind his horse. Frank's horse, being no fool, got the heck out of there. So
Frank soon found himself looking down the business end of Doc's forty-five.

Tom decided to follow the lead of his older brother and
tried to keep Billy's horse between him and the bullets. And Billy's horse, like
Frank's, wasn't having any of it. The horse skedaddled out of there, leaving Tom
along with Frank standing in front of the three Earps and Doc.

Although unarmed, Ike was determined to stop the fight.
So after the first shots had been fired, he ran up and grabbed Wyatt. After a
bit of a tussle, (where according to Ike, Wyatt tried to plug him) Ike took off
and ran off toward the OK Corral. No one saw him for a while after this.

After Doc's bullet hit Billy in the "bosom" (to use
Ike's word), he drew his gun and was immediately hit in the wrist. He switched
the gun to his left hand and started to shoot. According to Johnny this was
after eight or ten shots had been fired by the Earps and Doc. As Billy slid to
the ground he kept shooting.

Johnny Behan, unlike Tom or Ike, was armed. And
he acted exactly as you might expect. He and a young friend of the cowboys,
Billy Clairborne, ran for cover.

Frank had by now moved out into the street. Although
acting confused and disoriented (it's hard to concentrate with a bullet in your
guts), he was able to draw his gun and take a shot at Doc. The bullet skinned
Doc's hip.

"I have got you now!" Frank called.

'Your a good one if you have!" Doc replied, who decided
that even during a gunfight it was a gentlemanly courtesy to pay a man a
compliment.

One of the bystanders, R. F. Coleman saw that Doc had
been grazed.

"You have got it now!" he called.

For a man who was known to be quarrelsome, Doc seemed
to be able to find plenty of time to make polite conversation during his
gunfights.

"I am shot right through!" he shouted back.

Morgan had been shooting at Frank and Billy and likely
hit one or both. But then a bullet struck his right shoulder and ripped along
his back. He fell down but got back up and continued shooting.

Wyatt and Virgil also had gotten their guns into
action. Virgil fired (so he said) once at Frank and three times at Billy. Then
Virgil got hit in the calf, probably by Billy. Virgil, like Morgan, was able to
get back up and keep on fighting.

By this time Doc had pretty near emptied his pistol at
Billy and Frank. Doc was a man who never liked to leave a job half finished so
he took Virgil's shotgun and blasted Tom in the side. Tom staggered out in the
street and then a bullet from Morgan hit him in the head. He managed to make it
to the corner of Third and Fremont.

At least Frank was no longer acting dizzy and confused.
Actually he wasn't doing much of anything except laying on the other side of
the street. Like his brother, he had a bullet in his head.

But Billy still kept firing from the ground with his
back propped up against the Harwood House. Then too weak to hold his gun, he
fell back.

The gunfight was over. Three law abiding and hard
working ranchers had been brutally murdered by a bunch of opportunistic tin-horn
gamblers.

So said Johnny, Ike, and their friends.

Now on to Version 2. Courtesy of the Earps and Company.

After being told by Johnny that he had disarmed the
Clantons and McLaurys, Virgil and Wyatt put their guns away. Being conscientious
law officers, they would only use "minimum force" even when trying to subdue a
treacherous gang of murderous thugs bent on mayhem.

So they were mighty surprised when they saw the cowboys
still had their guns. Virgil, acting judiciously and with he full authority of
the law, lifted up Doc's cane.

"Throw up your hands," he said. "I have come to disarm
you. I want your guns."

Seeing that Virgil and Wyatt didn't have their guns in
hand, Billy and Frank, those dastardly cow thieves, went for theirs. Virgil
claimed he heard the clicks as they drew back the hammers.

But even now, the Responsible Virgil was still trying
to avoid a fight.

"Hold on! " he called. "I don't want that!"

But it was too late. Billy and Frank, criminals to the
core, were drawing their guns against the city marshal and his deputies.

Wyatt, veteran of a thousand brawls and faro games,
thought fast. Knowing that Frank was a better shot than Billy, he drew his gun
and shot at Frank, finding his mark. At almost the same time, Billy fired at
Wyatt and missed.

So the first two shots were fired by Wyatt Earp, a
fully authorized lawman, and Billy Clanton, who was as one Earp Champion called
him "a hardened young fighter" who would never beg for his life.

Ike ran up to Wyatt and grabbed him. And Wyatt could be
as loquacious as Doc while bullets were whizzing around his head.

"The fight has commenced," he said. "Go to fighting or
get away."

He then pushed Ike away and Ike took off.

Tom was trying to grab the rifle in Billy's saddle, but
couldn't reach it. Using the horse as a shield he moved toward the street while
he fired his pistol (!) twice at Virgil.

Yep, according to Virgil and Wyatt, Tom had a gun. It
could have been one of his bullets that hit Morgan.

At this point the two versions begin to agree. Both
sides were now shooting at each other, the horses were taking off down the
street, and the by-standers and the county sheriff were scattering for cover.
And after anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds (depending on how you count), Tom and
Frank ended up with bullets in their heads and Billy was lying on the ground
shot in the guts.

But the forces of justice and righteousness had finally
triumphed. And one of the worst criminal gangs in the history of the nation had
been worsted.

At least that's how the Earps told it.

Once the shooting was over, though, the townspeople
began to take over. A group of men ran up to Frank who was lying in Fremont
Street. Doc Holliday was one of them.

"That son of a [gun] has shot me," Doc said, "and I
mean to kill him." Since Frank already had a bullet in his brain, the other men
were able to reason with Doc that it wasn't really necessary.

A group of men also gathered around Tom. One of them,
Tom Keefe, a carpenter who had earlier seen Wyatt buffalo Tom, spoke to the
rest.

"Let's pick this man up and take him in the house
before he dies," he said. So they took him to the house on the corner. For all
practical purposes Tom was done in. In a few more minutes, he WAS done in.
Frank too was carried in the house. He didn't have to wait a few minutes.

Billy however was still conscious. And he still had his
gun.

Camillus Fly, the photographer, came out of his house
with a rifle. He called to Robert Hatch who earlier had warned Virgil when
Wyatt was at the gunshop.

"Take than man's pistol or I will kill him," Fly said.

Hatch saw Billy was still trying to cock his gun.

"Go and get it yourself if you want it," he called.
Fly went over and took the gun from Billy.

"Give me some more cartridges" Billy muttered.

Once the shooting was over, Johnny came out of Fly's
gallery. By golly, he was sheriff and had to do his duty. And he did it as
effectively as ever.

He went up to Wyatt.

"I will have to arrest you," he said.

"No one could arrest me now," Wyatt said. Then he
decided it was all Johnny's fault.

"You threw me off my guard," he said. "You have
deceived me. You told me that you had disarmed them."

After a bit of a "Did not!/Did too!" conversation,
Johnny let Wyatt go on about his business. Which was helping Virgil and Morgan.

Both were wounded pretty seriously. Virgil was shot in
the calf and Morgan's shoulder wound resulted in a chipped vertebrae. Now in
the movies leg or shoulder wounds are mere annoyances. The hero wraps a hankie
around his leg or puts his arm in a sling and gets along hale and hearty as
ever. But in 1881, when the most potent antibiotic was whiskey, a lot of men
died from shoulder and leg wounds. Virgil and Morgan were loaded up into wagons
and taken to their homes.

Billy had been carried into the house where Tom and
Frank were stretched out. Billy though was still kicking. Literally.

Again when a guy gets plugged in the movies and "isn't
going to make it", he'll still have plenty of time to deliver his lines. Oh, he
may cough and gasp a bit, but he'll still say he's sorry for what he did and how
he hopes his mother won't find out about what happened and to tell Nellie he
won't be around to help on the ranch. And usually he asks to have his boots
taken off. Then he lifts his head high enough so it can dramatically fall back
to let the audience know he's finally dead.

But since the first Western movie was still twenty
years in the future, and the first one about Wyatt Earp was over fifty years
off, Billy didn't know the script. He just played it by ear.

So rather than giving long teary speeches, Billy was
"hallooing" with the pain and "turning and twisting and kicking in every
manner." You never see this in the movies, but you do see it if someone really
gets gut shot.

One of the men told Billy he couldn't live.

"They have murdered me," Billy said. "I've been
murdered. Chase the crowd away from the door and give me some air."

A doctor was called and Billy was given two doses of
morphine. He lived less than fifteen minutes.

"Drive the crowd away," he said at the end.

One of the reasons Westerns have been so popular is
they always give you a lot of action. The good guy rolls into town, blasts the
bad guys, and rides off into the sunset. But in Arizona in 1881 (and now) if
three people got gunned down on a city street you had to divert at least some
attention to things like statutes, judicial proceedings, and inquiries.

So if you ignore Johnny's attempt to arrest Wyatt (and
you might as well), the first cog in the judicial wheel began to turn. Dr.
Harry M. Matthews, the county coroner, called an inquiry as the law required.

Eight witnesses testified. And although some were
pretty impartial you have to admit it seemed a bit slanted in favor of the
Clantons and McLaurys. The two main witnesses were Johnny Behan (who had jumped
into Fly's Gallery once the shooting started) and Ike Clanton (who wasn't even
there for most of the fight). Also called was Billy Clairborne who according to
those in the know was a cowboy partisan.

They all agreed with Version 1. The Earps shot down
unarmed men who were in the act of surrendering.

But none of the somewhat more impartial witness could
tell who shot first. Either they weren't around when the first shots were fired
or they were trying to get the heck out of there when things started to look
nasty. And none heard Billy say he didn't want to fight or Tom say he was
disarmed.

Evidently Dr. Matthews thought it a bit unusual that it
was only the witnesses with an Earp ax to grind that were brave enough to stick
around and take down verbatim dialog. So in the end he didn't pass judgment on
whether the killings were justified or not. He simply reported that Billy
Clanton and Tom and Frank McLaury had died of gunshot wounds. And the shots
were fired by Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan Earp and by John Henry "Doc" Holliday.

The Tombstone Nugget (which didn't like the Earps) said
they were pleased to learn that. After all people may have thought the cowboys
had been struck by lightning or stung to death by hornets.

Opinion was decided mixed. If you listened to Wyatt
talk about it a decade or so later, once the fight was over he was surrounded by
a whooping, hollering, cheering crowd of well wishers who were glad to see the
forces of good had triumphed over those of evil. But no one else at the time
noticed that.

And dissenting opinions weren't just from "the cowboy"
faction and anti-Earp newspapers. In keeping with the custom of the times
Billy, Frank and Tom were put on display in the hardware store. The sentiments
of the owner there were scarcely pro-Earp. Instead a sign was hung up with the
huge letters that blared out "Murdered in the Streets of Tombstone.

So was born the first Chapter of Honorable Earp
Detractors. And it's been going strong ever since.

But when you look back at it, there was at least one
verifiable, documented, and positive milestone to come out of the whole affair.
And it was a big one. Virtually unheard of at the time and whether due to
through luck, fortitude, sunspots, or a shift in the earth's electromagnetic
field is anyone's guess.

But Johnny Behan, yes Johnny Behan, Sheriff of Cochise
County, Good Old ("I am in charge") Johnny, had finally gone out and, by golly,
actually made an genuine, bonafide arrest. Not only one but two.

With Johnny, of course, you might expect him to have
hauled in a couple of Sunday School marms or maybe some denizens of Tombstone's
elementary school.

Nope, actually it was a bit more substantial than that:
Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday were now sitting in the Tombstone city jail. And
charged with murder.

It was a big day for Johnny.

Let's repeat it once more, all together.

When there was a gunfight back in the days
of the Old West, the winner did NOT, repeat, did NOT simply holster his gun, hop
onto his horse, and ride off into the sunset. Then as now there were these pesky
little things called laws, courts, and judicial proceedings.

And the law covered everyone. And that
included law officers and their deputies.

In some ways it was even more stringent
than today. Nowadays if a policeman fires his gun and plugs someone, there will
be an inquiry. But if it is clear the assailant was armed and was likely to
shoot, the matter will usually proceed no further than an internal police
investigation.

Not so in the late 1800's. Without
internal investigation departments or citizen review committees, an officer was
likely to be arrested - often by one of his own deputies - and held for trial.

It's particularly instructive to consider
the case of John Selman. Around 1890, John was constable in El Paso. In the
late 1870's he had also been a cold blooded murderer during the Lincoln County
War where he had once killed an unarmed fourteen year old boy so he could take
the kid's horses. And like many cold blooded murderers of the old West, he
naturally turned to law enforcement in his mature years.

One night while John was walking his beat,
a former Texas Ranger named Bass Outlaw (that was his real name) got tanked up
and decided to have some fun shooting up one of El Paso's many sporting houses.
When John tried to make him stop, Bass pulled a gun and took a shot at John's
head. Although temporarily blinded by the flash, John managed to return the
fire, killing Bass.

Today this would almost certainly never
have gone beyond an internal inquiry. But here John was arrested. The facts
were pretty clear though, and the judge instructed the jury there was no
evidence to convict. So John got off. But the point is he was arrested FIRST.
THEN he got off.

And this wasn't the last time Old John
would face trial - and as a law officer. A little later John was again on his
beat and he walked into the Acme Saloon where John Wesley Hardin was playing
poker dice. John pulled his gun and shot Wes in the back of the head, swearing
it was self defense. After Wes was on the floor, John pumped a few more slugs
into him for good measure. Of course, you just can't be too careful when it
comes to self defense.

Again he was arrested, this time by his
own son, John Jr. who was also a city policeman. The facts being a bit
ambiguous, the jury was deadlocked on the verdict. Before he could be retried,
though, John Sr. was killed by ANOTHER law officer, George Scarborough several
months later. As you guess by now, George was arrested and found not guilty.
And yes, George was later gunned down himself. This time (at least) it wasn't
by a fellow policeman, but by an actual bonafide bad guy.

So when Wyatt and Doc were the only ones
standing after the Gunfight at the OK Corral, it's not surprising that they were
arrested. What is surprising that it took as long as it did.

Well, maybe not. Johnny Behan was the
sheriff.

How Johnny hauled Wyatt in is anybody's
guess. You'll remember that Johnny tried to detain Wyatt once before and didn't
have much luck. So when he did finally arrest Wyatt (and Doc, too) it's a sure
bet he had some help.

Now the court system in Arizona at that
time was actually pretty sophisticated and more or less followed the modern
procedures. If an arrest was made, the accused were taken to a judge, who could
either allowed or deny bail. Then there would be a preliminary hearing. The
judge would then either remand the case to trial or rule there was insufficient
evidence for further proceedings. Also grand juries convened from time to time
to go over the docket, and they could issue indictments. If they wanted to,
they could even overrule a judge's earlier dismissal.

So Johnny finally arrested Wyatt and Doc.
They appeared before Judge Wells Spicer, who was the Justice of the Peace.
Virgil and Morgan were too seriously wounded, although in a surprisingly modern
move, Virgil was suspended as city marshal. The judge listened to the
prosecutors and defense attorneys and set bond. Both Wyatt and Doc had no
problem raising the money and were set free.

The Earp Detractors say they should have
stayed in jail. After all, there was considerable testimony that Wyatt, Doc,
and the rest had just gunned down three men who were in the act of surrendering.
But of course, they say, the judge was Wyatt's buddy.

Well, maybe, but the bonds posted were
pretty steep: $10,000 in 1881 currency. We're talking big bucks there. And it
was pretty certain that Wyatt and the rest weren't going to run off.

Now the next step was to check on the
evidence. Although Judge Spicer didn't have the authority to preside at a full
trial, he could rule whether there was enough evidence to proceed further.
Which he did.

In looking at the court records of the
days of the old West, it's sometimes hard to tell if a proceeding was actually a
trial or just the first pass hearing. Modern attorneys like to say that's
because the "layman" (which includes most historians and humorous writers) can't
tell the difference. No doubt there is some truth to this, but it's also true
that the judges back then might have been a little vague on the matter too.

But what is clear is that the proceedings
that began on October 31, 1881 in the case of Arizona vs. Wyatt, Doc, Virgil,
and Morgan were a hearing and not a trial. But it had pretty much everything
you want: a judge, prosecutors, defense attorneys, defendants, witnesses,
inconsistent testimony, faulty memories, evasive answers, and out and out
perjury. And you can add sex if you count Ike talking about all the "bosoms".

Now Judge Spicer WAS a friend of Wyatt's
and Virgil's, no doubt about it. But it also appears he was a man of pretty
high integrity and knew the laws. And he could put personal feelings aside.
Once the honorable Alder Randall, one of Tombstone's sleazier mayors (whom
Judge Spicer couldn't stand) was charged with malfeasance. There's no doubt the
mayor was involved in shady deals and abusing his office, but Judge Spicer
pointed out what was done was not a malfeasance but a nonfeasance. And
furthermore the territorial legislature had forgotten to make either one of them
a crime. So somewhat bitterly Judge Spicer let the mayor go.

But it's also clear that when the issues
were cloudy he'd give the benefit of doubt to the elements of law and order.
Usually that meant those-who-are-not-the-cowboys. And since he was a city
judge (not county) he could give a wee bit more benefit of the doubt to the city
officers. Which happened to be Virgil, Morgan, Wyatt, and (arguably) Doc.

One of the first witnesses called was
Billy Allen, the same fellow who told Frank McLaury about Tom getting buffaloed
by Wyatt. He said he saw how the Earps and Doc walked up to the Clantons and
McLaurys and blew them away in a cold blooded act of murder. He was followed by
Billy Clairborne, Wes Fuller, and later in the trial by Johnny Behan, who all
said the same thing.

The defense attorneys were allowed to
cross examine the witnesses. And as modern lawyers do, they spent a fair amount
of time attacking the credibility of the witnesses rather than dealing with the
facts. They'd ask how much the witness had been drinking, had they ever been
arrested, and how the heck if they were so smart they stood literally counting
the shots while the bullets were flying around their heads. They even asked
Billy Clairbone how much taller he had grown in the last year. Billy said
nearly two feet.

The lawyers also liked to lay in loaded
questions of the "have you stopped beating your wife" genre. Did you see Tom
McLaury with a gun, one might ask. No, the witness would respond, he did not.
Well, do you know where he got the gun? This sort of thing.

Usually they didn't get very far with
that. There was a lot of objecting by the opposing attorneys on the grounds
that a question "assumed facts not yet established or statements not testified
to by the witness". Judge Spicer usually sustained such objections whatever
side tried it. When he did overrule an objection (which he also did frequently)
the attorneys would ask for his reasons. Judge Spicer, citing the law in polite
legal language, would tell them to take a hike.

Thirty witnesses were called. But when
you get down to it, four were pretty much what decided the case: Ike Clanton,
H. F. Sills (the railroad engineer), Addie Bourland (a dressmaker), and Wyatt
Earp.

The attorneys for the prosecution figured
their star witness would be Ike Clanton. After all, he had been there (sort of)
and he had seen (and participated) in most of what led up to the fight.

But that was a pretty bad move. Ike
didn't come off too well. For one thing he swore on the Bible (literally) that
he had NOT been out gunning for the Earps. Now the whole town, for crying out
loud, had SEEN him wandering the streets for six or more hours toting his rifle
and telling everyone he was going to have it out with the Earps and Doc. But
good old Ike steadfastly maintained the contrary. Not only did he contradict
virtually ever witness who had seen him out and packing his guns, it went
against what Ike testified himself at the coroner's inquiry. There he had said
he hadn't made any worse threats against the Earps than they made against him.
Which was the one of the few true statements made by either side.

As far as what happened at the gunfight,
Ike stuck by the claim Billy and Tom and Frank were trying to surrender. As
usual he did mention a "bosom" when he described Morgan shooting at Billy.

But where Ike really ran into trouble is
when he gave his version of the stage hold up. This was deemed relevant since
it's what precipitated Doc's and Ike's quarrel. Which was, after all, what
caused the gunfight in the first place.

Well, Ike said, he knew the whole story
about that. He didn't want to tell it, but by golly, here he was under oath.
And as a loyal American he had sworn to tell the truth. So be it!

So with an enthusiasm that belied his
stated reluctance, Ike then detailed how the stage robbery had been engineered
by none other than (you guessed it) - Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp. Oh, his brothers
and Doc were involved too, but that ne'er-do-well Wyatt was the brains behind it
all.

But what about Leonard, Crane, and Head?
And Wyatt's attempts to capture them?

Oh, that was nothing more than a ruse, Ike
said. You see, Wyatt had "piped off" a thousand or so dollars from the strong
box BEFORE the stage made its run. So the stage robbery itself was really just
a diversion to cover up the theft. Yep, Wyatt was in cahoots with the stage
robbers.

So how did Ike know all this?

Why, Wyatt told him, of course. The
"deal" between him and Wyatt to capture the stage robbers was really an attempt
to get them to some secluded area where Wyatt could murder them so they couldn't
squeal. Naturally, Ike said, he would have nothing to do with such a dastardly
cowardly deed. But rest assured, the stage robbery was all due to Wyatt Earp.

So swore Ike Clanton, and some people
believe it to this day.

The defense attorneys had a field day
during cross examination. For one thing there the little discrepancy that none
of the money was missing from the strong box (remember the stage never stopped).
How could Wyatt have piped off the money and all the money still be there?
Maybe the stage stopped on the way to Tombstone and the Earps slipped the money
back without the (surviving) driver and (surviving) passengers noticing it?

Even more dubious was Ike's claim
that Wyatt would have confessed all this to him. Well, said the defense, why
stop there? Maybe others had confessed to Ike that they were murderers and
stage robbers too. How about James Earp who spent most of his time tending bar?
No? Well, maybe Marshal Williams had confessed he was a murderer and stage
robber too? Hm? Judge Spicer overruled those questions, but then the defense
really hadn't expected Ike to answer them anyway. When Ike left the stand he
did so with dignity, but not much more.

After a few more witnesses, some who
supported the Earps, some the Clantons and McLaurys, some neither, and some
both, Wyatt Earp took the stand. After giving his occupation as "saloon keeper
at present," he was asked to state any facts that would tend to his exculpation.

Obviously that was quite a lot. So Wyatt
pulled out a sheaf of paper and began to read.

Naturally the prosecution objected. He
shouldn't be allowed to give testimony from a manuscript "without limits to its
relevancy" or being "subject to cross examination".

Judge Spicer overruled them and Wyatt
began to read. And read. And read. And read.

A lot has been made about this. To some
this is proof that Judge Spicer was totally biased in favor of the Earps. To
others (and some lawyers) all this means is that the proceedings were NOT a
trial, but just a preliminary hearing. And that there was nothing in the
statutes that prevented this type of stuff.

That Wyatt gave a long winded speech is
not in dispute. Why he escaped cross examination isn't so clear. There's
nothing in the record, though, to show that the opposing attorneys went much
beyond their first objection. And there's no indication that they asked for
cross examination after the statement was finished.

Wyatt's version differed a bit from Ike's
of course. He said (among other things) that Frank and Tom had sworn earlier
they were out to kill him (unlikely), Ike had been threatening him and he was
tired of it (probably true), and that it was well known to those in law
enforcement that Ike was "sort of" the head of an outlaw gang (whatever that
means).

As far as the stage hold up went, he took
the high road and didn't even dignify Ike's claims with a comment. What he did
was imply that one of those involved in the hold up was none other than -
(drumroll, maestro!) - Joseph Ike Clanton!

How would Wyatt know this? Well, they
often stopped at his ranch, didn't they. Even Ike admitted that, so what more
proof do you need? And that was his undoing. Since Ike was "sort of" the
leader of an outlaw gang, he was the perfect man to betray his comrades for a
greasy, sleazy buck. And THAT's why Wyatt struck the deal with Ike to capture
Leonard and his friends.

And of course no one at the hearing - not
Ike, Wyatt, Johnny, or anyone else - mentioned the obvious fact that if anyone
sitting in the courtroom was a friend of Billy Leonard and was tied in with the
hold-up, it was Doc.

When it came to the actual gunfight, Wyatt
swore that after Virgil said "Throw up your hands" Billy and Frank drew their
guns and started shooting. The first two near-simultaneous shots, said Wyatt,
were Billy shooting at him and he shooting at Frank. He said he believed Tom
was armed and shot over the horse's back. But he seemed less sure of this and
conceded Tom might not have been armed.

After ending up by handing over a written
testimonial from some of the outstanding citizens of Dodge City (even if they
did say so themselves), Wyatt left the stand.

By this time, though, a new member of the
prosecution team signed up. And one that must have made the Earps and Doc a bit
nervous. It was Will McLaury, the brother of Tom and Frank, fresh from Fort
Worth where he practiced as an attorney.

Will wasn't there to handle the civil
aspects of disposing of Tom and Frank's estate either. A recent widower, he had
left his small children with friends and had come to Tombstone for one reason
and one reason only: To make sure Wyatt, Virgil, Morgan, and Doc got strung
up. "I think we can hang them," he cheerfully wrote back to his family.

Now after living a good part of his life
in the big city, there was probably a lot he didn't care for when he got into
Tombstone. It was pretty rustic to be sure and like in most mining towns the
hotel charges and cost of living were pretty high. But at that time Fort Worth
had some pretty rough places too and living there probably cost more than
residing in Judge Roy Bean's hometown of Langtry.

But what Will REALLY didn't like was
seeing Wyatt and Doc wandering about the streets. That the cold blooded killers
of his brothers had the run of the town was too much. So using his not
inconsiderable skills as an attorney (and probably his not inconsiderable bank
account as well), Will put on a few legal moves that sent Doc and Wyatt back to
the slammer.

Back at the hearing, one of the more
important witnesses was testifying. This was Addie Bourland, a dressmaker,
whose shop was across the street from the gunfight. She was pretty unbiased,
but like most of the other witnesses that didn't have a particular ax to grind,
she wasn't too definite about what happened. What she did say was that no one
had their hands in the air when the shooting started. Judge Spicer later
stopped by her house and asked her for more details. Then he recalled her to
the stand and questioned her again whether she would have been able to tell if
the cowboys had raised their hands. About all she could add was that she
thought she would. Despite the vagueness of her answers, Judge Spicer seemed to
give a lot of weight to what she said.

But it was H. F. Sills that really saved
the day for Wyatt, Virgil, Morgan, and Doc. When put on the stand he told how
he heard the Clantons and McLaurys threaten to kill Virgil and shoot them "all"
on sight and how he warned Virgil. More to the point he testified that it
really was Wyatt and Billy who fired the first shots. And keep in mind that Mr.
Sills testified AFTER Wyatt.

The last point says it all for some of the
Earp Champions. I mean if the most unbiased disinterested witness testified
under oath that he saw Wyatt and Billy fire the first shots and that's what
Wyatt had said earlier, then what's to dispute?

Actually, quite a lot. More on that
later.

The prosecution tried to discredit Mr.
Sills but didn't have much luck. He had never met anyone involved until he spoke
to Virgil and had no ax to grind one way or another. The prosecution didn't
have much dirt on him, either, and had no idea of how much he had been drinkin',
cussin', belchin', and spittin' the day before.

But what made Mr. Sills testimony stand
out was that he was sure of his facts. He didn't hem and haw about what
happened and showed a confidence that many other bystanders lacked.

At one point, though, the prosecutors did
ask him if he had talked to anyone about the case.

"I haven't told anyone direct what I know
of the difficulty," he said, not saying if he had told someone indirect. "The
first word I spoke of it to anybody was to Jim Earp I believe."

What? Jim Earp? Mr. Sills talked to Jim
Earp? Well, you can be sure, the prosecution would have pounced on this and ask
him what he told Jim Earp.

But they didn't. Which makes you think
the lawyers were pretty much nincompoops. But that's not the case. They were
(really) some of the finest there were. Not only in the West but in the
country. But it still looks like they screwed up royally or had their heads up
their legal backsides.

Now whenever someone points out that what
a lawyer does doesn't make sense or it looks like they screwed up, other
attorneys will put on their lawyer's hats and gleefully point out that it only
SEEMS that way because, by golly, you ain't a lawyer. Now if you HAD a law
degree, you uneducated moron, you'd KNOW that it was just your ignorance of
legal technicalities and judicial proceeding that made it look that way. Lawyers
not make sense? Lawyers make mistakes? Nonsense.

But still to the "uneducated laymen", it
seems they should have followed that question up a bit. Just a wee bit .

Toward the end of the hearing, Virgil had
recovered enough to take the stand. His testimony was pretty brief, though. He
said he didn't know who fired the first shots but he was definite that Tom
McLaury had a gun. At the time of the opening volley, he said, he held nothing
but Doc's cane, and drew his gun only after the shooting started.

And a few more relatively ineffectual
witnesses and thirty days, the hearing was over. Judge Spicer retired to review
the more than ample evidence, facts, and more than obvious perjury.

Finally on November 30, 1881, he sat down
to read. Depending on whether you're an Earp Champion or an Earp Detractor, it
was either a carefully reasoned and skillfully crafted legal opinion or a
blatant and shameless whitewash of an open and shut murder case.

Judge Spicer first pointed out that there
was a lot of contradictory testimony which came from witnesses of credibility
(you wonder if he smiled when he read this). So he had to go on the testimony
of the witnesses who were not involved in the fracas or where there was (to use
the high falootin' legalism) a large "preponderance of evidence."

First, he said, it was without doubt that
Ike was wandering around town, armed and looking for the Earps and Doc. He
seemed to blow off the fact that Doc started it all and didn't seem to think
Ike's toting the guns around was legitimate self defense.

But he did call Virgil to task of calling
in Doc to help him. Not many people disagree with that. After all Doc really
started the whole thing, and an officer really shouldn't call in a man who
threatened to kill someone he's trying to arrest. Then Judge Spicer blew off his
criticism by saying, well, Virgil needed some help, after all, and there was no
"criminality" in this "unwise act" anyway

What seems to get glossed over by a lot of
Earp Champions (and everyone else), though, is that Judge Spicer also trashed
Virgil for asking help from Wyatt (!). Again a responsible law officer doesn't
ask assistance from someone who had assaulted a man you want to detain. The
judge at least seemed to remember that Wyatt did NOT, repeat DID NOT, at that
time hold any official law enforcement position outside of his "special"
appointment in a bar room. Now if this had been "The Gunfight at Wyatt's Faro
Table in the Oriental Saloon" maybe that would have been OK.

He also addressed the issue of whether Tom
was unarmed by saying it didn't matter. If Tom didn't have a gun, he WAS one of
a party of men who did. And you ain't supposed to carry guns in town. So tough
luck, Tom.

As the judge read on he gave a lot of
weight to Mr. Sills' testimony and he accepted his and Wyatt's version of who
shot first. And he bought Addie Bourland's story about no one having their
hands in the air. Both of these people were unbiased, and they pretty much
supported the Earps.

So the long and short of it was Wyatt,
Virgil, Morgan, and Doc got off. And at the end Judge Spicer passed the buck a
bit by saying if the current grand jury that was in session disagreed with his
findings they could, after all, return indictments on their own authority.

Ike decided to take up Judge Spicer's
advice before the grand jury did and immediately refiled murder charges before
Judge Williams - not in Tombstone but in Contention City. Judge Williams just
as promptly told Ike not to waste his time without new evidence. Then Ike tried
AGAIN (back in Tombstone) and filed charges before Judge J. H. Lucas, who
ironically had been one of the last witnesses at the Spicer hearing (he saw the
shootout from his office). But the third time was NOT the charm, and Judge
Lucas told Ike to forget it.

So that would be that, except for a few
more murders, ambushes, revenge killings, and a writer who could spin a pretty
good yarn about a former frontier lawman as long as he kept away from the facts.

But first, wouldn't you REALLY like to
know what happened at the OK Corral?

Actually, no one knows for sure. Not even
the guys who were there. So how can you expect historians, film makers,
television producers, and humorous writers to know what happened?

But that's not the point. What you want
to do is to make people THINK you know what happened. That way you can write
articles, books, screenplays, and television scripts about it. Then you can say
you've "reconstructed" history.

So let do a "reconstruction." This one's
probably as good as any and better than some.

First, let's realize some things. There's
no reason to think that as they walked down Fremont Street Virgil, Wyatt,
Morgan, and Doc all had the same intentions. The same can be said for the
Clantons and McLaurys.

Despite Virgil's harsh rhetoric to Johnny,
all he wanted to do was arrest and disarm the cowboys. Sure he may have wanted
to rough them up a bit and throw in an odd buffaloing or two. But what he
really wanted was to reassert his authority as city marshal.

Morgan and Doc? They wanted to blow the
cowboys away.

Wyatt position is a bit more problematic.
In the years immediately following the fight he always stuck to his
law-and-order story. But one historian has a letter that Wyatt wrote as an old
man. There Wyatt said he was surprised when Virgil told the cowboys to throw up
their hands. And he said that when he began to grapple with Ike, he was really
trying to gut-shoot him. So maybe he was with Doc and Morgan after all.

But for now we'll give Wyatt the benefit
of the doubt. We'll say he was with Virgil on this one.

Virgil was after all the man in charge.
HE was the city marshal. HE had the authority to make arrests. And HE was one
that walked up to the Clantons and McLaurys and told them to throw up their
hands.

Did they put up their hands? Addie
Bourland said she didn't think so, and that's what Judge Spicer went by. But
in later years a newspaper in Kansas City interviewed a man who witnessed the
fight with his father. He claimed they saw the cowboys put up hands and they
were shot down in cold blood. Of course, he never testified. But Addie's
unbiased but vague and uncertain vindication is canceled out by an equally
unbiased but firm assertion to the contrary.

So we'll "reconstruct" a bit and say maybe
one or two of the cowboys raised their hands. Or started to. The best bet is
Billy Clanton.

But remember Virgil then gave another
order. And according to some witnesses he also ordered them to give up their
arms.

And THAT's what caused all the problems.

OK, you're a 19 year old teenager and the
marshal and his deputies (including a drunken, murderous, former dentist) come
up and order to you throw up your hands AND give up your arms.

How do you do that?

Well, you could raise your hands first and
let the marshal take the gun. That would be the smartest way to do it.

Or you could raise your hands, do a front
forward flip, and let the gun fall out of the holster. Or maybe you just raise
your hands and do side cartwheels down Fremont Street which would accomplish the
same thing.

Or you might think, "Well, I'll hand my
gun to the marshal, THEN I'll raise my hands." Which is about the LAST option
you should try.

But if you were REALLY nervous - as you
might be if the drunken, trigger-happy dentist just stuck a gun in your friend's
belly - you'd probably - unwisely - do just that.

And that's what Billy did.

Now Virgil realized that Billy was going
to surrender. So he kept his head together and his gun in his belt. Maybe
Wyatt realized that too and kept his gun out of sight.

But Morgan and Doc - that's a different
story.

Remember: Doc Holliday was a gunfighter.
A real gunfighter. Maybe with an overblown inflated reputation, but a real
gunfighter, nonetheless. And Morgan - affable enough at his best, but hotheaded
- didn't think too much different.

Now the hallmark of a western gunfighter
was he shot first and used his head later. If at all. And forget abut two guys
squaring off on Main Street. If you think that happened - especially where the
"good guy" let the "bad guy" draw first - you might want to disconnect your
cable TV for about six months and try reading a few books. Oh, sure, Marshal
Dillon would do it. Pa Cartwright and his brood would do it. Jim West would do
it.

But let's think about a REAL gunfighter
for a minute. Even one who was (nominally at least) on the side of the law.

As Henny Youngman would have said, take
James Butler Hickock. Please.

By that time Wild Bill was hired as
marshal of Abilene, he already had a reputation as a deadly gunman. This was
due to merit. After all, he WAS a deadly gunman.

But his reputation was also partly due to
an newspaper interview with Henry Morton Stanley years earlier. That was, by
the way, the same Henry Morton Stanley who years later presumed he had found Dr.
Livingston.

One of the things Wild Bill told Henry
that he reckoned he had killed nigh on a hundred men. And Henry presumed it was
true and dutifully wrote it down. After that not many people cared to mess with
Wild Bill.

But that didn't always keep the unruly in
line. In 1871 Marshal Hickock found himself confronting a bunch of rambunctious
cowboys on Main Street in Abilene. Here his interview with Henry didn't help.

In some ways it wasn't really that smart
to have former Union soldiers as cowtown marshals. No Texan wanted it known
that he let a northern carpetbagger take his gun. As one old time cowpuncher
said "Back home, one Texas ranger could arrest the lot of them. But up north
you'd have to kill them."

So a bunch of cowboys just off from a
trail drive wouldn't have cared less what a [darn] Yankee told them to do. And
a reputation built on what he told an Englishman whose idea of a good time was
hunting missionaries would count for even less. So Wild Bill or no, the drovers
decided they would parade around town with their pistols, brandished and
prominent. And just as naturally Wild Bill told them to put them up while they
were in town.

So with a long haired perfumed former
scout for the Union Army with a high pitched voice telling them to simmer down,
the Texans were equally determined to rowdy it up. The odd were stacked against
Wild Bill and he knew it.

As things began to look really nasty, Wild
Bill heard foot steps approaching from behind. So he whirled and fired. And
killed his own deputy who was running up to help.

That's the way the real western
gunfighters acted. Or they did if they wanted to stay alive.

So back at Tombstone, Doc and Morgan
didn't stop to think. Their instincts said Billy was going for his gun. So
they cocked their single action revolvers and began to draw.

Virgil heard the clicks and saw what was
happening. So he called out - not to Billy and Frank - but to Doc and Morgan.

"Hold on! I don't want that!"

Too late. Doc and Morgan fired almost
together. Morgan at Billy and Doc at Frank.

Frank MAY have been surrendering too. Or
he may really have made a move for his gun. After all, there's no reason to
believe that all the Clantons and McLaurys acted the same way to Virgil's order.
Frank was clearly the one more likely to resist so it's about fifty-fifty that
he was going for his gun.

But going back to Billy. Although he had
been willing to give up his gun and was doing just that, Morgan's bullet in his
guts probably changed his mind. Instead of handing over the weapon, Billy now
changed his action from giving up his gun to drawing his gun. And he began to
shoot.

Now if you were a bystander, like H. F.
Sills, what would you think? You heard Virgil order "Throw up your hands" and
saw Billy draw his his gun and begin to shoot. You could easily have thought
that Billy had intended to fight from the first.

But wait a minute, you might say. Mr.
Sills said Wyatt and Billy shot first. Not Morgan and Doc. How about that?

Well, for one thing, Mr. Sills had never
seen either Morgan or Wyatt before the gunfight. So there's no way at the time
he could have known who was who once the bullets began to fly.

Next, Mr. Sills was standing 200 feet
away. And the Earps were facing AWAY from him.

And the Earp brothers looked a lot alike
anyway. So much that even people who knew them would sometimes confuse them.
One night (and admittedly it was dark) Johnny Behan spent a few minutes talking
to one of the Earps. He thought it was Virgil and only later did he find out it
was Wyatt.

But here's the real kicker. Mr. Sills
could not even have SEEN Wyatt.

Historians usually have Wyatt standing
inside the lot with his back to Fly's boarding house. With Mr. Sills standing
down at the corner of Fremont and Fourth, he would have seen Morgan, Doc and
(maybe) Virgil. But not Wyatt.

Now if you take Mr. Sills vantage point,
you'll see that the smoke from Doc's gun would have billowed out right in front
of Billy. So with Billy drawing his gun (so Mr. Sills thought) and the smoke
from Doc's (and Morgan's) gun puffing out at about the same time, Mr. Sills
thought the first shots were from Wyatt (really Morgan) and Billy (really Doc).

And after the gunfight who would he have
seen? Wyatt, of course, since he was the only one left on his feet. A bystander
would have identified him and, lo and behold, you have Mr. Sills ready to swear
Wyatt Earp and Billy Clanton fired the first shots.

But hold on one more time there, you say.
Wyatt ALSO said he and Billy shot first. And since he testified before Mr.
Sills, so how could Wyatt have known what Mr. Sills was going to say?

Easy.

His brother, Jim, told him.

Remember the one cryptic comment that Mr.
Sills made at the hearing? When he said he had not talked to anyone "direct?"
But he did speak to Jim Earp?

And no one asked him what he said to Jim?

Well, what WOULD you have said to Jim if
you had been Mr. Sills?

For one thing you would have told him what
happened.

"You know, Mr. Earp," Mr. Sills would have
said, speaking indirect. "I saw it all. Wyatt and Billy drew their guns at the
same time and fired the first shots. I'd swear to it."

So off Jim skedaddled to Wyatt and spilled
the whole story. There would be one completely unbiased witness who was
prepared to swear he and Billy fired the first shots.

If you didn't mind a little perjury (and
that was the least of Wyatt's worries), you could now testify that you, Wyatt, -
an honorable faro dealer and saloon keeper at present - shot at Frank and Billy
shot at you. AND best of all, you could say Billy was drawing his gun from the
first.

And have everything backed up by an
unbiased and impartial witness.

Beautiful. So the cowboys were resisting
arrest and Doc and Morgan were off the hook.

From then on the fight played itself out.

You might think that most Earp Champions
would believe Wyatt's story about him and Billy shooting first. That's not the
case. Sure, some do, but not all that many. Most seem to think that Doc and
Morgan really fired first, and a majority actually put Doc as the real culprit.
Even Josie believed Doc fired first.

But the first two shots were fired almost
at the same time and no by-stander could really tell which was first. So all in
all, this "reconstruction" (sc. guess) of what happened seems pretty good.

And after all this, who do the Earp
Champions blame for the fight? Even those who think Doc and Morgan fired first?

You guessed it. Joseph Ike Clanton.

I mean, they say, Ike - that big, fat,
slob of a blowhard - had wandered around town for five or six hours trying to
start a gunfight. And when it finally happens, what does he do? He runs away
and leaves his younger brother to die on the field of battle. Yep, it's all
Ike's fault.

But let's be honest. It was DOC who
started the fight for crying out loud. Doc. John Henry Holliday, DDS, 1872,
Philadelphia College of Dental Surgery. It was DOC who threatened Ike the night
before and it was DOC (with Morgan) that fired the first shots. Saying Ike
started the fight is stretching it. REALLY stretching it.

But what about Virgil? HE was the man in
charge. HE deputized Doc. So, despite Spicer's waffling on the subject, was
Virgil really to blame? That's a subjective judgment, but you can ask another,
better question. Should Virgil have been held criminally liable? Maybe even as
an accessory to murder?

To answer this question, a legal opinion
was sought from a licensed practicing attorney. Since it was provided free of
charge, the counsel wishes to remain anonymous, lest he be ostracized from the
ranks of reputable members of the bar.

All right, then. Was Virgil guilty?

Even by today's standards, probably not.
Virgil's intents were, after all, within the scope of his authority. He DID
have authority to appoint deputies. And he WAS charged with disarming men who
were carrying firearms within the city. If that's all he intended and he acted
in good faith, then even if things went haywire, he had (or could claim) what is
known as "sovereign immunity." That would probably hold today, and it certainly
would have held in the nineteenth century west.

Finally, what about the biggest mystery in
the universe? WAS Tom McLaury armed?

This is split down party lines: the
Earp/Doc Party and the Clanton/McLaury Party. Based on the evidence alone, you
can take your pick.

And what's really strange here is that
both sides are willing to give in a bit to the other. Some Earp Champions
concede the possibility that Tom wasn't armed. Even Wyatt seemed to hedge a bit
on this. And there are some Earp Detractors admit he possibly was. After all
Johnny Behan himself conceded he hadn't searched Tom all that thoroughly,
leaving open the possibility that Tom had a gun.

There WERE some impartial witnesses who
that said they saw Tom fire a pistol. Of course, they didn't testify at the
inquest, but they did speak about it later Doesn't this mean Tom had a gun?

Not really. With the bullets flying,
black-powder smoke billowing, horses panicking, and by-standers scrambling , it
would be easy - all too easy - for anyone to confuse Frank (who everyone agree
did fire) with Tom. So eyewitness testimony here really doesn't mean that much.

And more to the point, the Earp Detractors
say, Tom had actually checked his gun before the fight. The saloon keeper swore
to that and the gun was picked up at his bar after the fight.

Of course, Earp Champions say this was a
ruse and that Tom got another gun.

To bolster their claim, they cite one
witness who said he saw Tom go into a butcher shop and come out with a bulge in
his pocket "like he had a gun." Actually a butcher shop is a funny place to buy
a gun. And for some reasons the Earp Champions don't want to accept the obvious
interpretation that Tom bought a steak.

But for Tom to have checked his gun and
then picked up another one would mean that Tom would have to have an incredible
amount of telepathic prescience. He would have to know there was going to be a
gunfight and it would later be debated by historians if he was armed or not.
This would also suggest he knew he was going to get killed.

Anyway, if he had a gun, the Earp
Detractors say, where did it go? How can you answer that?

Easy, say the Champions, Johnny Behan
snuck it out. He picked it up after the fight and hid it knowing this would make
the Earps look like cold blooded murderers.

But there's a few things wrong with this
picture, too.

First hiding a gun was risky. Johnny had
no idea who had seen the fight or what they would testify to. At the time he
had no idea if one or a hundred people would swear they had seen Tom shoot a
gun.

And remember there were scads of people
around. Although most had ducked for cover, others had come running down the
street once they heard the shots. If you time the 50 yard Fremont Street Dash,
you have a some fellows arriving about the time Tom went down for the count.
Would Johnny Behan have had the presence of mind (not to mention quickness of
hand and sheer guts) to conceal an Army Colt revolver as everyone and his
brother ran up?

Not the Johnny Behan we've come to know
and love.

So you can take your pick here. But
there's less problems with thinking Tom wasn't armed.

So that's the story (maybe) of the
Gunfight at the OK Corral.

So now we can begin. Yes?

After the Gunfight at the OK Corral and the Spicer
Hearing, it would have been nice if everyone could have just holstered their
guns, let by-gones be by-gones and settled down and lived happily ever after.
Sure, there had been a gun battle prompted by questionable motives and with a
tragic outcome. But arrests had been made, the legal wheels had turned, and the
judge had spoken.

So all loyal American should have happily bowed to the
judicial decision in a country where justice is dicated by laws, not men.

Right?

But that would have made an awfully dull story for
movies, TV, historians, and humorous writers. So to make it exciting for
everyone, things actually got much worse.

This wasn't completely evident at first, mind you, but
there were hints that things might not quite return to the happy days of
yesteryear where the Earps could cash in with relatively little work. Certainly
law enforcement fees weren't going to keep rolling in. That became clear when
Virgil got fired as city marshal.

Naturally the Earp Champions are aggrieved by this.
After all, Virgil WAS the city marshal, and the cowboys WERE violating the law
by making threats and refusing to give up their guns. And even if Doc opened
the ball first, why should Virgil get the axe? Just for a few rustlers?

Well, there were several reasons. First, the judge
himself said by making deputies out of Doc and Wyatt (and don't forget the judge
mentioned Wyatt here) Virgil committed an unwise and censurable act. And there
were a lot of people who agreed with that, especially those who thought Doc was
a jerk.

Next, despite what Wyatt said, most of the evidence
suggested that at least Billy Clanton and Tom McClaury were not looking for
trouble. Only Frank had been giving Johnny a tough time, and even he had agreed
to go to the sheriff's office. A little more restraint on the Earps' part and
the matter would have sorted itself out at least for the time being.

Finally, there was Will McLaury. He was still in town
and him just being there kept the anti-Earp flames fanned up a bit. He wasn't
satisfied with the judges ruling, and he let people know it. All in all, the
people felt sorry for him.

So bit by bit the opinion began to shift against the
Earps. Oh, they still had their friends and supporters but a sizeable chunk of
the population began to think they might have been just a wee bit quick on the
trigger. So the city council asked Virgil to turn in his badge.

But there was no real reason for the Earps to clear out
of Tombstone just yet. Virgil still had his federal deputy commision (which
wasn't all that lucrative though), and Wyatt still had his faro table. Although
other opportunities weren't as plentiful and mining speculation was drying up,
there were other business ventures around, and Wyatt was also thinking about
running for sheriff again. Who knows? In time, maybe things COULD have returned
to normal.

But that all changed when Virgil got blasted by a
shotgun as he crossed the street in front of the Oriental Saloon. It was night
and no one saw who did it. But it appeared to come from a building across the
street. According to the story, Wyatt was around and he gave vigorous chase to
the miscreants.

And gosh darn it, can you imagine what he
just happened to find? By golly, there in a back alley jest sittin' there big
as life was a hat belonging to none other than Joseph Ike Clanton. How about
that? Looks like just before he went out for a little fun-and-murder, Old Ike
asked his mother to stitch his name on his hat just like it was a pair of
underwear intended for summer camp. Of course, the hat somehow disappeared and
no one but Wyatt saw it.

At least Wyatt now knew who he should go
after. For the moment, though, he had a bit more to worry about. Like Virgil.

Even if there had modern medicine with its
arsenal of antibiotics, antiseptics, and pain killers, Virgil would still have
been in pretty bad shape. The buckshot had shattered his upper arm and caught
him in the back. Not too many people expected him to live, including himself.

In that day and age and at that place, the
remedy for a severe arm or leg wound was to cut off the offending appendage and
hope that the amputation wouldn't kill the patient. So Virgil's main concern
was the impression he would make at his impending funeral. He told Wyatt if he
was going to be buried he wanted to be buried with both arms attached.

The doctor did his best although he did
have to remove most of the bone in Virgil's upper arm. After that it was pretty
much useless for anything other than cosmetic appearances. But Virgil did keep
both arms, and to everyone's surprise, he did pull through.

But he wouldn't be able to act as a
federal deputy marshal, at least not for a while. So Wyatt telegraphed the head
marshal up in Prescott, Crawley Dake (that was his real name, not a double
misprint) and told him about Virgil's condition. He was careful to say that
Virgil wasn't expected to live, and asked that the federal deputy position be
transferred to him, Wyatt. Dake (who is generally recognized as a major
sleezebag who had no hesitation in lining his pockets) acquiesed. So finally
Wyatt had a federal deputy marshal's commission. Repeat: that's a federal
DEPUTY marshal's commission.

That's as high as Wyatt went in law
enforcement. A substitute deputy for his brother. But even here his tenure was
pretty brief. Murder indictments tend to shorten federal appointments. But
we're getting a bit ahead of the story here.

But as far as Wyatt was concerned, he had
the authority to go after Virgil's would-be assasins. And he did this in fine
Earp style. Like a kid with a new toy, he brandished his badge and got together
Doc Holliday and a bunch of their more disreputable buddies, some of whom had
criminal charges pending against them. He courteouly dubbed this group a posse
and started out.

He knew who he was looking for too. Ike
Clanton and any of Ike's cohorts who happened to be with him. There was one in
particular who Wyatt thought was involved: Frank Stillwell. Frank, by the way,
was a former deputy under Johnny Behan and was currently under indictment for
stage robbery.

At this point it's useful to get out a
piece of paper and pencil and start keeping track of who arrested who, who got
charged with what, which charges were dismissed, and who got jailed. Because it
turns out that about the time that Wyatt and his buddies were out looking for
Ike, Ike had refiled murder charges against the Earps and Doc before Judge Smith
in Contention City. So it fell to Johnny Behan to convene a posse to get the
Earps. He did so, and to help him out he deputized - who else? - Ike Clanton ,
Frank Stilwell, and a bunch of THEIR buddies.

So now Cochise County had two sets of
lawmen each out trying to arrest the other.

In his new capacity as federal deputy
marshal, Wyatt didn't cut too dashing a figure. In fact, him barging into the
various towns with a band of armed thugs trying to arrest people who weren't
even there made such a stir that some of the citizens complained so loud the
governor got wind of it. And with Johnny's posse doing the same, the news
eventually went as far as Chester Arthur, then the President of the United
States. Chet decided to bide his time and see if things would quieten down.
But he did give serious consideration to revising the Posse Commitatus Act
,which then (as it does now) allow law enforcement officers to form posses.

Eventually Johnny managed to haul in
Wyatt. Wyatt put up bail, had his lawyer file a writ of habeus corpus, and got
out of jail. And with no new evidence the charges were dismissed. But before
he could get back after Ike, Wyatt was again hauled in and recharged before
Judge Lucas, this time back in Tombstone. Same story. No new evidence, no
indictment.

Sorry, Ike.

Now it was Wyatt's turn. He hauled in Ike
and HIS friends and charged them with Virgil's shooting. But since the only
evidence was a hat which may or may not have even existed, the judge threw this
case out, too. Somehow in all this ruckus, Johnny Behan even ended up getting
charged with perjury. The charges here were also dropped.

The actual chain of events was actually
much more complicated and confusing than sketched out above. But the long and
short of it was that after about a year of rather sleezy sordid dealings between
the Earps, Clantons, and the rest, it seems that everyone had shot their bolt,
leaving few legal recourses for revenge.

That's few LEGAL recourses.

On the night of March 18, 1882, Wyatt and
Morgan had attended the theater with their significant others. Being manly men,
they ditched their wives and repaired to Bob Hatch's saloon to quaff a few
brews.

At 10:30 p. m. Morgan and Bob Hatch were
playing a game of billiards while Wyatt and other patrons looked on. As Bob bent
down for his shot there was a roar from the back door as a shotgun blast ripped
into Morgan's back, shattering his spine. A few pistol shots came through the
window too, and the kibitzers scrambled for cover.

Wyatt (who was nearly hit) ran out the
back alley and gave chase. Although everyone expected Wyatt to come back saying
he had found a suit of clothes with Ike's name on it, this time he returned
empty handed.

Virgil had survived his ambush, but Morgan
wasn't so lucky. He was carried to a sofa and died less than an hour later.

So here you are. Virgil's out of
commission (legally and literally), Morgan is dead, and someone is out to kill
them all. And Wyatt now has the badge of a deputy US federal marshal.